My boyfriend Holden loves the mountains almost (I hope) more than he loves me, so naturally for his birthday on June 26 we decided to head out to Banff for a hike. With the whole “no travelling because of the pandemic” thing going on, I figured this would be a great year to do a trail at Lake Louise. { Most years I tend to avoid the entire area of Banff from June – August because it’s simply too busy. }
Originally we talked about hiking to the Lake Agnes Teahouse, but then we decided to do a bit more and hike the whole Plain of Six Glaciers route. After doing some research, I found out that there are actually two different teahouses – Lake Agnes and the Plain of Six Glaciers Teahouse.
We got on the road around 8 am with our good pal Tony (with a stop for McDonald’s breakfast, of course. Because, health.) and met up with Holden’s sister, her husband and their friend at the edge of Lake Louise at 10:30. My advice is to head there just a tiny bit earlier than this, as the parking lot was almost full by then. I think leaving at 7:30 would’ve been perfect. That being said, the fact that we got a parking spot in the main lot at Lake Louise at 10am on a Friday in June is absolutely unheard of. Thanks, Coronavirus.
Birthday Boy!
After taking the typical tourist photos by the lake (I couldn’t resist – it’s never that empty there!), our group of six set off. The hike starts as a winding, packed-down dirt path around the lake to the back side. From there, you head across a boardwalk and up towards the Victoria Glacier!
The trek to the teahouse took us just over an hour and 45 minutes, and was about 5.5 kilometres (3.4 miles). The weather by the lake had been pleasant and slightly cloudy, but the higher we hiked, the rainier it got. Luckily, we were warm from the elevation gain (about 588m or 1929ft total) and welcomed the cool rain. Overall, the path was clear other than a few snowy/slushy sections (crampons or hiking poles might’ve been useful!), and well-traveled and marked.
The teahouse was so cute, and we HAD to pop in for a hot tea (or in my case, lemonade, as I was so warm from the hike up). A few members of the group got soup, but I’d packed a picnic for Holden and I. Once we left the restaurant area, we spent a little more time on some benches in a nice, flat area by the stream and ate our lunch. There were also some very cute, blog cabin-style outhouses. We were delighted with a surprise visit from Arlo, the resident teahouse dog!
After lunch, we decided to do the additional 1.3 km (0.81 miles) trail up to the Plain of Six Glaciers viewpoint before turning back around. The lookout was gorgeous, and the area was almost subterranean, like something out of a space or middle earth movie. It was very windy, and still raining, so after taking even more photos, we headed back down.
This is where things started to go a bit wrong.
First, some members of the group decided they wanted to detour off the path and into the valley beside the trail to slide down a particularly snowy patch. Some days, I would’ve been all about this, but on this particular day I was already feeling a bit (a lot) anxious and didn’t feel the need to go off the path, so Holden and I carried along the regular trail, keeping an eye on our more adventurous friends from a distance.
Shortly after passing the teahouse again, the rest of our group had made it back up to the established trail and joined up with us again, and we continued along.
As we got closer to the lake on our way down, another member of our little group mentioned that someone we’d passed by had suggested that the horse trail paralleling the main hiking path was a faster and easier route down.
I was all for an easier and faster route, and everyone agreed to go this way instead of sticking to the main trail. At first, it seemed like it had been a great idea – a wide, flat, clear path which we were able to make quick time on. But then the trail just seemed to… disappear. We couldn’t figure it out where it had gone, as it didn’t appear that we’d missed a turn or anything, and we didn’t know how horses would continue on, or how to link back up with the main path. We knew we were parallel with it, and still had the lake in our sights, so we were going the right way, however massive rocks, a creek and major brush made it difficult to trek through.
After struggling through the bush, climbing over rocks, and splashing through thigh-deep water, we were elated to find that we were back on the main trail. The rest of the walk back to Lake Louise was easy from there, and at the end we enjoyed dipping our tired + blistered feet in the freezing glacier water.
We spent about 15 minutes sitting in the car to revive ourselves before beginning the drive home. Just another misadventure in the life of Elle and Holden!
If we’d followed the trail, to hike to the viewpoint and back down to the lake was 13.6 kilometres (about 8.5 miles). What should’ve taken us about 4.5 hours at our usual pace ended up being over 6 hours (including breaks), and after the 2 hour drive home we barely made it in time for our reservation at 8:15pm at the Ship & Anchor Pub in Calgary for Holden’s birthday celebrations! I would’ve thought that leaving the city at 8 o’clock in the morning would ensure that we’d be home in time, but our detours had added quite a bit of time.
All-in-all, this is a moderately difficult hike – not too steep and it’s a well-traveled, packed down path. It’s clearly marked and easy to follow, and the views were incredible – it absolutely exceeded my expectations, and you could see Lake Louise the whole time. I would suggest this route for intermediate hikers – you don’t need any special equipment (other than crampons and/or hiking poles to navigate the snow if you go early on in the summer) or experience, but I certainly wouldn’t do this as a beginner or someone not in reasonably good physical shape.
We were rewarded with stunning vistas throughout the entire hike, hot tea (or cold lemonade), dog pets and a story to tell at the end of the day!
Takeaways:
- Leave Calgary by 7:30am / aim to be at the Lake Louise parking lot by 10am. (This applies to 2020 only. Any other year in late June, you’d probably need to be at the parking lot by 6am.)
- Bring cash for the teahouse, or pack a lunch and plan to sit in the nice picnic area by the stream.
- Be prepared. Bring a frickin’ rain jacket (I meant to, but forgot).
- Have a pair of sandals in the car to throw on after the trek!
- Stay. On. The. Trail.
- Definitely dip your feet in the lake water at the end of the hike. This really saved me!
Note: neither of the dogs pictured in this post belong to me. One belonged to a friend-of-a-friend and the other was under the care of the restaurant staff at the Plain of Six Glaciers Teahouse. I believe that pets should be on-leash at all times while exploring the mountains, and I don’t condone these dogs being loose. I do, however, condone petting them. 😉
