SUNDAY, 25 OCTOBER 2026

(Lake Louise, AB)

We woke after a good night’s sleep and I got up to make the coffee. I peered out of the window. Snow covered the ground. There had definitely been a few inches of snow overnight. We got dressed and went for breakfast in the hotel dining room. I hadn’t yet had opportunity to cook my own waffle, so that’s what I did. This particular one created a very large waffle. Obviously I added maple syrup, because we are in Canada. Then I decorated it with a few strawberries, which I’m sure makes all the difference, and instantly makes it a healthy option. 

We got ready to hike, and carried our stuff to the car. I cleared the snow off, and we set off for Lake Louise. The road was still covered in snow and we had the car in ‘snow mode’ for much of the drive, and definitely in the car park, which was several inches deep. On the plus side, I had worried that we might not get parked, as there isn’t a huge amount of parking compared to the number of people wanting to visit, but driving at 10am today was still sufficient to get a space.

There was no doubt about footwear today. It was a case of ‘have spikes, will hike’. It was slippy enough walking to the boot of the car to get the spikes out! It didn’t take long to get ready, and then we set off. Arriving at the lakeshore it was busy. A lot of tour buses come up here, proving people with an hour to take in the view, and many were milling around, taking pictures and drinking coffee. 

The overnight snow was adding to the scenery, but the clouds were still hugging the mountain tops, and hiding Mount Victoria. We walked around the west side of the lake, along the Lakeshore Trail. This is a 2km level walk, made easier by having the spikes on our boots. We stopped often to enjoy the views and take photos. There were still a lot of people, but the numbers reduced the further along we went.

Once we reached the end, we had a decision to make. There is a route that continues, and so we decided to walk it a bit to get some elevated views. I knew this to be the Plain of Six Glaciers trail, but I hadn’t planned on us walking up it, as it’s quite a long trail and climbs, well, up. 

We set off and walked a bit climbing through pine trees. Every so often we’d cross a more open section, sometimes the result of past avalanches, as much of this hike is within an avalanche zone. The clouds continued to obscure the high peaks, even as we climbed. Eventually we decided that we were around 1-1.2km from the Plain of Six Glaciers tea house (closed at the time of year). We decided to go for it, as a turn around spot. However, I asked a couple of people descending it they had been there and if it was about 1km away. They weren’t sure of distance, but they had turned before getting there, as they had reached the cloud level and didn’t see much point walking in fog. 

We considered this, noted that the clouds had actually lowered in the last 15 minutes, agreed with their viewpoint, and decided that there wasn’t much point continuing just to get into the fog. We’d already come further than I’d expected, so we turned around and started down the mountain. The change of direction offered different views, still plenty of snowy trees, but occasional glimpses of the lake. As we neared the lake, rather than the weather closing in, it turned out that the clouds were now lifting and clearing for the first time today.

We walked back around the lakeshore, and admired the mountains that we’d been walking in. It’s fair to say that our legs had a decent workout over the 6 miles of our hike, made possible by having good traction under foot.

We returned to our room, for tea and cookies, and to rest, before getting ready for dinner. Andrew’s so informed him that he’d burned over 1200 calories hiking, so we felt no guilt whatsoever going for pizza. Luckily, I checked Google maps before we set off on foot, and noticed it still said ‘closed’, which was off as I thought it opened at 5pm, and it was now after that. A check of their website confirmed the sad news. It doesn’t open on Sundays. A back up plan was rapidly devised, we would try the grill and bar over the road in the shopping mall area. Located above the shops, it was also a Chinese restaurant, so we both opted for stir-fries, which at least meant that we got a good serving of veggies tonight. A bonus was that it came with a view of mountains and was nearer and less of walk, although we’ve got used to hiking for dinner after our free nights in Jasper.

Back in the hotel we looked at the large prints of old photos that are located along our corridor before getting back to our room, where we put the boots on the boot dryer to air out. A fascinating device…

And that’s about it for today. Tomorrow we move on again, but I’m sure there’ll be more lakes and more mountains. 

[Editor’s note: I’m a bit behind on videos, but here’s today’s hike https://vimeo.com/1239351277.]