Lake Louise, Banff National Park, Alberta, CanadaThis time of year puts me in the mood to get outdoors, do a bit of hiking, paddle in the water … or at least thinking of those summertime activities. Warm weather gets me particularly itching to go camping. Raised as I was in pre-Hollywood Montana, when you could still taste a bit of frontier tang on the air, camping was my definition of “family vacation” until I was about 25. People might go to Disneyland or the Caribbean on TV, but in real life families went camping.
Living about an hour from Yellowstone National Park, and with an abundance of Rocky Mountain wilderness all around us, we never had a shortage of places to camp within easy driving distance. But for some reason — probably that wanderlust in my family’s blood — once a year or so we got a hankering to travel a bit further, to head north. With kids packed precariously in the back of a beat-up Suburban (seat belts scavenged from even older cars), my parents drove up to one of their favorite places on earth, Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada.
With mountains wilder and far craggier than their slightly southern cousins, the Rockies of the Canadian West are manna for the escapist soul. The hikes are steep, the summer evenings cold, the lakes stupendously blue. Lake Louise, pictured above in its usual turquoise shade, attracts between one and two million people a year, despite its seemingly remote location. In high summer, or during peak travel in August, even the semi-strenuous 5-hour hike up around the lake and over the other side of a mountain is a pretty busy thoroughfare.
But that doesn’t affect its heart-stopping beauty, nor does the partway point marked by a tea house. Something akin to beer-and-sausage huts maintained for hardy hikers in the upper reaches of the Alps, Lake Louise’s tea house has got to be one of the cooler things I’ve seen in a lifetime of hiking. Been slogging and sweating for three hours? Cool your feet in a lake — we have plenty — and restore yourself with jasmine tea and a piece of cake before the journey down.
Here in my Hudson Valley home, it’s time to think about gardening and possible summer trips overseas. But in this mountain girl’s heart, the thoughts that preoccupy are of the open road, of chilly mountains, startling glacier-fed lakes, campfires, and waking up at dawn, in a cold tent, the Canadian Rockies brooding overhead.
What a beautiful place it is, indeed. You have Banff, Jasper, the Icefield’s Parkway. What more can one ask for (aside from an icefield still visable from the road?
The only thing that I wish people (or maybe I don’t) knew was that Lake Lousie is nothing compared to Moraine Lake just a little further away.
But the fact that it still is low on tourists makes it pretty fantastic too.
Hey, you gotta have some secret spots, right? Otherwise where do we get to escape to? Busloads of sightseers to Athabasca Falls … we need something to make us feel cooler than everyone else! And Moraine Lake is indeed spectacular. No tea house, though
Glacier fed lakes…how gorgeous and becoming a rarity. Busloads of sightseers are like pigeons these days, more common than I’d prefer.
Canada is one of the most beautiful place over the planet! there are various views all over the country, one is more beautiful than the other…
I would advise everyone go see the glacier-fed lakes before they disappear (that color is inbelievable in person), but then they’d disappear faster … travelers’ conundrum.
Canada is incredibly gorgeous, though! Feels so lavish, having such a big country with so many different styles of natural beauty.
I’ve been to Banff several times and at different parts of the year. Canoeing in Lake Loise or Horse driven sleigh rides across.
Being from California, I get a kick out of the Rockies in the winter and the Dog sledding experience is not to be missed! Whether hiking and camping or enjoying the luxury surrounding the two top Hotels there like Fairmonts Banff Springs or the tea house in the Chateau Lake Louise, there is truly nothing like it on Earth!
I’ll be going there again this winter and this will be my seventh trip.
My wife and I have just purchased a nice 13-men tent lol yes it’s very big and we sure need the space for our 5 children. What we would like to find is a place in the wild where we can camp and do some hiking besides the usual overcrowed campsite where lots of them don’t accept tents.
Would someone have any ideas where this could be done?
Thank you very much for your help.
oops I am sorry I forgot to mention that we live in Edmonton, Alberta.
Thank you
Michel, it’s gotten very hard in the last decade or so to find camping sites that allow tents. Most of Banff’s sites allow soft-sided camping only November to May. I did find one website where you can search for tent-camping sites in British Columbia (didn’t find one in Alberta): http://www.camping.bc.ca/ Looks like there are a fair number if you get out of the national parks–and away from bears. Good luck!
Sandra, sounds like you have a great time when you go up there! Dog sledding’s turning into a big thing in the Rockies. My dad just did it in Montana and said it was awesome. Enjoy your next trip!
What a beautiful set of pictures! I go camping with my family often around New England, but would love to be able to go up and visit a place like this. That lake looks amazing.
It is really a stunning place. New England is such a lovely place, but it’s nice to get out to the Rockies sometimes. And Lake Louise is definitely something worth seeing! It’s glacial silt — a cream-colored kind of sand — that turns the water that brilliant blue. The picture doesn’t do it justice.