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Lake Louise Trailer Campground, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. Odometer – 6796

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Shir woke us up before 4am, and refused to sleep for about half an hour. By the time she was dreaming again, I had to get up for my morning hike to The Plane of Six Glaciers. This is a beautiful 8 mile hike that starts along Lake Louise and then continues up the valley that feeds the lake to uncover the 6 different glaciers looming overhead. One of the guide books we have says that if you can do only one hike in the Canadian Rockies this would be it.

I started off with sunrise pictures of Lake Louise and the glaciers of Mount Victoria. The lake was like a mirror. I continued up the trail as the sun started hitting Mount Victoria. At 6:30 I reached the teahouse and saw one of the employees sitting on a bench reading a book. They hike up to the teahouse, work 5 days, sleep in the teahouse (or a cabin nearby) and then get 2 days off. $1200 a month plus $200 tips. If anyone is interested, they need a waiter for September.

I continued for another half hour along the northern part of the valley, steadily climbing until I got to the final viewpoint of the glaciers and mountains all around. Spectacular. I was standing on a barren sea of rocks and boulder, past the tree line with only stone snow and sky ahead of me.

On the way back I improvised a bit on the trail, which proved to be foolish as I kept slipping down the slope and creating mini rock slides. After half an hour of hard work I got back on the trail and stayed on for the rest of the hike. Only after completing most of the way back down did I finally start to see additional hikers coming up the mountain. The solitude of the early morning hike was a big bonus after yesterdays highway experience going up to Lake Agnes.

When I got back to the RV, we quickly got the kids ready and went out back to Lake Louise for a 4km stroll along the lake and back. The views were great, so great that Shir and Orr fell asleep before we got back.

After lunch we drove down to the visitor center and learned about tectonic shifts and faults and how all the Canadian Rockies were once under an ocean. We watched a movie about wildlife protection in the park, and each time an animal would appear (bear, elk, bambi) Shir and Orr would eek out sounds of glee and state the animal’s name at the top of their voice. I hope the other people in the theatre did not mind too much.

A wrong turn after filling up gas and propane took us to the local playground, where after a week of abstinence, the kids found refreshing amusing and fun. I kept a close watch on Shir and her purple cast. It was great to see her adapt to her new situation and still climb up the stairs and down the slide.

Tomorrow we start driving north to Japser via the world acclaimed Icefields Parkway.

Good Night,

-Hemi

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 14th, 2007 at 6:27 pm and is filed under Alberta, Big Trip, Canada, North America RV 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.