Tour buses and lake louise

A Cloudly lake louise
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Theoretically Lake Louise could be done on a day trip from Banff as it only about 60 km up the road. There is a village there of sorts that is about 5 km away from the lake containing the visitor centre and a small mall and mostly accommodation after that. Once again the hostel here was top notch which was a bit of a shame as it would have probably being the best hostel ever if it had one. As for the main attraction, the lake, it is as beautifully scenic as all the pictures suggest. It is a shame about the monstrosity of a hotel that is built there. You see this before the lake itself, but you'll soon forget about it when facing towards the lake. The lake has a green/turquoisecolour to it because of the silt that's washed into it from the glaciers further up the mountain. There are a number of hikes that one can do around the lake and they are the only way to pass a day here unless you want to travel to the gondola ride about another lake, but hey that's the lazy way to do it. The first hike i did was a short 3 km round trip with a lookout point over the lake and since that only took about 30 minutes i decided to hike to the other end of the lake and up to what were called Plain of the six glaciers (although i didn't actually see anything that named the six glaciers). The first part of the hike about the lake was all nice and tarmac, probably for all the tourists who don't want things to get to hard, you know what I'm talking about. After that it's into the mountain terrain and for the first time i experienced my problems with high altitude, my poor little sea level lungs were heaving for breath on the way up. I definability slowed my down as i had to stop to catch my breath from time to time. The views on some of the trail may not be the best but is was worth it to get to the end, after about 2.5 hours and to have a nice relaxing cup of tea at the tea house at the end of the trail. Just as i had started on my way back down, i got to see an avalanche, not a very big one mine you. I had heard a few on the way up(sound like thunder), but was not able to see any. Maybe they were in the section that had cloud cover. The one i saw was right over the edge of a cliff face on one of the mountains. Unfortunately i didn't get my camera out in time to get a snap. Plus a note to all ipod users, don;t use them in the Rockies. There was a guy right in front of me that completely missed the avalanche because he was listening to one. On the way back down i cut across to another trail, which was more punishment as it was over another mountain rather than if i had stayed on the original trail which would have being all downhill. This brought me to a place called mirror lake. It wasn't doing much reflection though on this day. These were the times i cursed the clouds. After that it was all downhill(thankfully) back to the lake. Altogether i had spent about six hours hiking, but if one wanted you could easily knock a whole day out of it.

The mountains about
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Back at the hostel made myself a well deserved (well at least i though so) broth and noodle soup, real mountainy that. Later on got talking to some people in the common room, one of the best places in the hostel. Spent the night playing pool, table football and board games with a couple of Scottish girls ( who i amy meet in Vancouver) and some guy from SanDiego. I think i will even surprise myself in saying it was an enjoyable evening and all without the distorted view of achohol. Hmmm maybe you don't need to drink to have fun. Nah!! must be all the fresh air making me say that.