Day 11 - "Lake Louise will take your breath away"

That's what it said in my Moon Alberta guidebook, anyway. "Lake Louise will take your breath away". Well I've seen mountain lakes before, they can be spectacular, and I've seen pictures of Lake Louise (there's a black and white one in that very guide book). It looked very pretty, and I was looking forward to seeing it for real.

This whole part of our trip, being in the Rockies, was for Sandra. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't going to come to Alberta and not visit the Rockies, but I wanted to see other stuff as well, I didn't just want to do only the tourist trail. This whole week in the Rockies is pure tourist trail, and I threw it together without much thought. Three days in Canmore to visit Banff, Moraine Lake, and Lake Louise, two days in Jasper to take in the glaciers, Maligne Lake, and Mount Edith Cavell. I thought they'd be nice to see, because lakes and mountains can be pretty spectacular.

We drove out to Lake Louise along the Trans Canada Highway through Banff. It took us about an hour or so to get there, and I was quite shocked at how busy the place was. This is easily the busiest place we've been to, the multi-stepped carpark (patrolled by incredibly efficient and wide-smiling ushers) being almost full when we arrived.

You arrive at Lake Louise itself by walking from the carpark down a short forest path which opens out into what can only be described as an unashamed viewing platform. And why not? Tourist attractions become tourist attractions because people want to go and see them. And 10,000 people per day visit Lake Louise during the summer.

I've seen a number of sights during my life that have made my bottom jaw physically drop. The Space Shuttle flying over the halls of residence on the back of that specially adapted Jumbo Jet when I was at University was one of them. The total solar eclipse on August 11th 1999 was another. Dare I say the fish stalls at the English Market in Cork, Ireland were another. And confronted by the magnificence and size of the Pyramids at Giza, I was left speechless.

Lake Louise is the only place that has ever had me tearing up. Quite simply I've never seen a sight of such perfect, awesome beauty. As I stared at it in total wonderment, I heard a man next to me say to his companion, in a quiet voice, "it could make you turn to religion". I'm a Christian already, so that's not a decision I have to make, but I know what he meant. I could almost see God carving that bowl out of the mountains with his hands, and stepping back, and smiling to himself knowing that he'd made something extra special.

The scale of it is quite simply staggering, and it's that which takes your breath away. But then the colours, and the composition, and the detail, and the contrast between water, snow, stone, tree, ice, rock, all just combine to overwhelm you. After a while I tore my gaze away from it to watch other people emerge from the forest path, and saw them stumble a moment, and gawk at the view, and well, I envied them that they were seeing it for the first time, as I had only moments before. Sandra came up to me and said, "let's get someone to take our picture in front of it", and I had to tell her, "not just yet". It took me a while to compose myself, that's for sure.

I've put a picture of the view up on the Flickr site, but it doesn't do it any justice whatsoever. Photographing it truly is a waste of time. It's one of those places that you just have to see for yourself.

We walked a little way around the lake, and then the clouds rolled over and it started raining a little, so we decided to move on to Moraine Lake, a few miles away. As we drove the rain stopped, and the day became bright again. I didn't think that Moraine Lake would have anything to offer us after Lake Louise, but I was pleasantly surprised. In a world where Lake Louise didn't exist, Moraine Lake might reign supreme. It's a beautiful, stunning location, with crazy blues that shouldn't exist out of Photoshop. We ate our lunch there, the mundanity (is that a word?) of pre-made sandwiches that we'd bought in a Safeway in Canmore contrasting with a landscape straight out of Narnia.

Could the day get any better?

We drove back to Canmore not down the Trans Canada Highway, but down an adjacent road, the Bow Valley Trail. Much quieter, slower, and more scenic. Once we came upon a group of vehicles stopped, so we stopped too. People hanging out of their car windows, cameras at the ready. Bear? Moose? Something else? A car drove slowly past us, and a woman shouted, "what are people looking at?" Quick as a flash I shouted, "it's a spaceship!", but too late, the car was already past us. Damn my comedic timing. We saw nothing, and after a few minutes drove on.

Not long after, we came upon a similar gaggle of cars, so we stopped again. There were people crossing the road, and trailing up into the forest to our left. So it wasn't a bear then, unless these were very, very stupid people. Then something brown, moving through the trees... and something else... two of them... no three, four... more! Moose! Fantastic! We got out of H, Sandra with her camera at the ready. "It's a group of elk," said some wise-ass moose-dream destroyer. I got my video camera and shamefacedly followed the rubber-neckers into the forest. It was a party (herd??) of at least four or five unconcerned elk, lying down, eating grass and branches. They didn't seem bothered about all the people watching them and taking photographs and videos of them... but you always have to be careful, you have to remind yourself that these are not little people wearing elk costumes, they're real wild animals and they have antlers with at least a four foot span. In the deer family, only the moose is larger.

It's been a day of surprises. Our meal tonight at the Sage Bistro, a stone's throw from our hotel, was another one, lovely fine dining as recommended in my Moon Alberta book (my gosh that book was money well spent!). Now we're all packed up again, ready for our next trip and our next hotel. Tomorrow we make our way up the Icefields Parkway, stopping to "do" the glacier thing, before booking into our hotel in Jasper. I think it's got internet access, but I'm not sure, so if I go quiet for a few days you'll know why.

If it's anything like today has been, it's gonna be a real treat.