Lake Louse, Again

My previous post on Lake Louse was just a quick photo, so I thought I should probably talk about it at more length.

Lake Louse (the lake, as opposed to the nearby town) is a glacier-fed lake in Banff which sits around 5,000 feet above sea level. For me, that’s right at home. We stopped off to see it on our way to our hotel. Good thing, too, because the weather was great then, and miserable the next day.

Sadly, this was not our hotel. It’s a hotel that was built a few yards from the lake. All manner of people came and went from it while we stood by the lake. I heard French, Japanese, and German as well as English spoken among the hoards of people. It seemed everyone and their dog wanted to get a picture by the pretty blue water.

That water, much like all the other glacier run off I saw along the way, is a striking shade of blue. I didn’t stick a toe in, but I’m betting it’s mighty cold. Otherwise more of the people on shore would have been eager to swim.

They offered canoe rentals. The guy running the rentals said first thing in the morning was the best time, as the water would be totally smooth. He also said it wouldn’t rain. We were staying in a town about an hour’s drive away, and are not really early risers anyway.

By the time we returned, the rain was heavy enough that I didn’t want to expose my camera. So instead of paddling around on an icy lake, we wandered around in the shops in town. I’m kicking myself for not buying a couple of fossilized shells that I drooled over. We managed to pick up a couple of maps and directions to the glacier where we went walking, then continued on the way. By the time we’d walked on the glacier, then returned to our hotel, it had been another long day of driving.