We woke up at our hostel in Castle Mountain to pouring rain! I really wanted to do the Tea house hikes in Lake Louise and luckily, the weather cooperated for the majority of our hike.
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Lake Louise
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The climb up to Lake Agnes was steep and challenging but short. At the top is a log cabin where tea and light lunches are served. The owners have a 'grandfather clause' from Banff National Park since their business has operated for 100 years, long before the area became a National Park.
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| Up at Lake Agnes |
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| Lake Agnes Teahouse |
Bill ordered a hot chocolate. It was a nice place to relax before continuing our hike out to The Plane of Six Glaciers.
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| Waiting for our order at the teahouse |
The hike between the two tea houses has some amazing views. From way up on the mountain side, we could see tiny canoeists down on Lake Louise
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| Canoeists on Lake Louise |
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| Some sunshine! Hiking to Plane of Six Glaciers |
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| At the back of Lake Louise, looking out at the Fairmont |
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| Getting steeper heading up to the second teahouse |
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| Awesome glacier views |
We made it at last to the second tea house for some hot tea and soup to warm up. The food was actually really good considering it is prepared without electricity on propane powered stoves. Supplies are brought in by staff, mules and helicopter.
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| Hot soup and tea surrounded by glaciers. |
We took our time coming back down and made our way up the ice fields parkway to one of the highest points in the Rockies, the Columbia Ice fields. There is a small campsite just south of the ice fields center where we slept for the night. At such a high altitude, it was the perfect place to try our our brand new sub zero sleeping bags.
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| View from the hill behind our campsite |
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| Cozy Bill trying out our new sub zero sleeping bags |
Our regular sleeping bags were only good to 6 degrees Celsius which wasn't cutting it in Ontario! We were staying in hostels in the Rockies until we were able to get to an outdoor store in Banff to invest in better sleeping bags. They were so cozy!
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