Day 7-10: Moraine Lake, Lake Louise and Banff National park
Let's start of this post with the absolute highlight of the trip: Moraine Lake. It is the one picture you will come across when searching for breathtaking places to go in Canada. We love going to these places, however usually try to avoid crowds as queueing up for a photo or is not our thing.
On our way to Lake Louise Village from Jasper National Park, we started reading about how to best prepare yourself for a visit to Moraine Lake. We vaguely remembered reading something about a small car park and a shuttle bus. But that the shuttle bus stops running from mid-October because the road to Moraine lake closes....just when we would arrive. When we read that our hearts sank a little as it was unclear at that moment, whether we could still make it out there.
We have summarised the most helpful tips for you below, as we had to source this information from different places and based on our own experience!
Good to know:
The road to Moraine Lake closes to vehicles every year from mid-October until end of May. These are considered the winter months, as there can be significant snowfall and avalanche risks.
In the summer, there are two "easy" options to get there:
By car - As sunrise is the most popular time to go, the car park starts filling up from 4:00am. Once the car park is full (usually by about 5:30am according to sources online) Parks Canada will only allow a certain amount of cars in when cars have left again (so not a 1 in, 1 out policy). They also don't let cars wait in a queue so you have to be lucky.
By shuttle bus - Must be pre-booked in advance. The advantage is that you'll get to the lake and not have to worry about parking but the disadvantage is that you'll arrive with a big crowd at the same time.
When the road is closed to vehicles, you can still visit Moraine lake:
Walk
Bike (or e-bike)
Ski (when there is snow)
There is a store in town called Wilson Mountain Sports that rents bikes and e-bikes.
Hurray! This meant we could still cycle from Lake Louise Village to Moraine Lake and lucky for us, our hotel rented out free mountain bikes. It would be a 30km return trip, and since we considered ourselves fairly fit this didn't seem like a crazy idea. We started just after 7:00am and arrived around 8:30am. The majority of the route to the lake is uphill, so if you're an avid cyclist you can definitely do this faster than us! The road is in great condition and very scenic. Just make sure you pack some food and enough to drink and you're good to go. Once we arrived, we found out we were the first people there which made the whole experience even better. We had a good hour to explore the place on our own and take in the stunning scenery.
When you arrive at Moraine Lake, don't be tempted to climb over the logs to the Rockpiles (viewpoint), there is a proper walking route just to the left of the Rockpiles. Once we got to the top, we took a moment to admire Moraine Lake and the valley of the ten peaks being reflected in it. The burning question: was it worth it or was it overrated? From our experience, it was 100% worth the bike ride! We have seen a lot of mountains and alpine lakes and this one is solidly at the top of our top 3. Have you been before or have other tips to share with us? Please let us know what you think below in the comments!
When we arrived the day before to Lake Louise Village, we visited Emerald Lake and can recommend stopping by. The lake is close to the car park which makes it very accessible to everyone. When the lake is calm, the reflection is stunning. It is definitely worth a visit!
After Moraine Lake, we decided to freshen up first and then drive to Lake Louise. In the summer months, it is paid parking. When we arrived in October we noticed that even though the paid parking signs were still up, all the parking meters were gone which meant it was free parking for us. This lake is also accessible via a short walk from the car park and you get a great view on the Victoria Glacier. It also has a beautiful hotel just on the lake front called Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise. There are a couple of hiking routes you can take here, however as we had just cycled 30km we were happy to just be leisurely walking around the lake. We did the Lake Louise Shoreline Trail which is a 4km return trip. If you have more time, we would recommend going for the Lake Agnes Tea House hike (6.8km roundtrip) or the Plain of Six Glaciers Trail (10.6km roundtrip).
After spending two nights in Lake Louise Village we made our way to Banff Town. A lot of visitors base themselves here when visiting Banff National Park and we get it - the scenery from downtown is picture perfect! It is filled with cute and cozy restaurants, bakeries, cafes, breweries and boutiques. A great place to unwind after a long day of exploring! They have all the mainstream brands for outdoor clothing and equipment so if you forgot to pack some essentials you'll be sure to find it here.
One of the mountains you'll see in every backdrop of Banff Town is Cascade Mountain. We love mountaineering and when we found out this was a 20.2km roundtrip with 1800 meters elevation gain, we couldn't let this opportunity pass. We've been told by locals that last year October (2021) it was already snowing. When it's snowing it's not advised to go up this mountain as the level of difficulty is hard. Lucky for us, we've had clear skies and sunshine almost every day during our visit in October!
Next up, an honest review of the hike up Cascade Mountain. The first stretch to the Amphitheatre was uneventful and not scenic at all. You're mostly hiking uphill through a forest with almost no openings in the trees to admire the view. What makes hiking so rewarding is the stops along the way to take in the view and see how much progress you've made and this does not happen until you're already almost 7 km into the hike. Once you get above the tree line, be prepared to scramble the whole remainder of the way to the summit. We met a few people on the way up and our biggest tip for you is: stick to the marked path. The path is marked but with a combination of looking at All Trails and making some wrong turns ourselves, we got there in the end. We saw various people get lost along the trail due to the false summits. We even fell into this trap ourselves one time, so if you don't want to waste any precious energy on this hike try to look for the markings along the path. If you haven't seen one in a while, chances are you are going the wrong way!
Once you get to the summit, you are rewarded with stunning views over Lake Minnewanka and Mount Rundle! After a celebratory lunch stop here, we headed down the same way as we came up. Don't be tempted to take any shortcuts as there are a lot of steep drops along the way. The total hike took us about 9 hours but we've heard that experienced scramblers and trail runners can complete this in 6 hours. We recommend starting early as you will want to be back at the car park before sunset.
Was it worth the hike?
Yes! But keep reading. The view at the top and coming back to Banff Town and being able to point at Cascade Mountain and say "I was on that summit", makes it worth it.
We consider this to be a challenging hike due to the distance and elevation gain, and it requires walking up steep slopes of scree (small loose stones). We do not recommend this trail for beginners, as there are many false summits, the trail is easy to lose track of and you need to carry enough food and drink with you for a long hike.
Cascade Mountain packing list:
Bear spray
Sun screen
Sunglasses
Water and electrolytes drink
Sandwiches and snacks
Hiking poles (we didn't have any but we can definitely recommend them)
Hiking trail via a map/app
Toilet paper (there are no toilets along the way)
Extra layers in case of rain, wind or at the summit (down jacket, fleece or a rain jacket)
For those who would like a more relaxed day, we can recommend driving to the Vermillion lakes, Lake Minnewanka and Two Jack Lake.
One last note on bear spray, there are many places in Banff Town that offer bear spray rental. Our hotel also offered this option. Since we came from Jasper we didn't know that this was an option but we would recommend looking into this as we didn't end up using it (phew!).
Cascade Mountain marked the end of our epic trip to Canada. The next day we drove to Calgary and took our flight back to The Netherlands.
We really hope that we've given you some inspiration for your future trips. We will create a summary post for you where we share a consolidated map and budget in the next blog post.
Top sites to visit:
Moraine Lake
Lake Louise
Emerald Lake
Cascade Mountain
If you're planning to do Cascade Mountain we recommend skipping (you will see these from the summit):
Vermillion lakes
Lake Minnewanka
Two Jack Lake
How to get around (based on our experience):
Mountain bikes
Car
Where to stay:
Lake Louise Inn (complimentary mountain bikes)
High Country Inn
For the foodies:
Breakfast/coffee
Laggan's Lake Louise (for their cookies)
Wild Flour Bakery Banff (for their pastries, breakfast sandwiches, coffee)
Lunch/snack
Hankki Banff (delicious Korean streetfood)
Dinner
Truffle Pigs Bistro & Lodge Field (amazing burgers and a great twist on the classic poutine)
Mountain Restaurant Lake Louise (mostly for their poutine and beers)
Ramen Arashi Banff (some of the best ramen we've had outside of Japan)
Block Kitchen + Bar Banff (Asian style sharing plates and cocktails, they work with a waiting list so just show up and prepare to wait before being seated)
Three Bears Brewery & Restaurant Banff (gastropub style food and local brew, we went here for the beers and would recommend making a reservation to be guaranteed a seat)
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