2017 Summer Road Trip: Lake Louise Campground, Banff National Park, Alberta Canada

Alisha says: When we first booked most of our campground early in the planning stage of this trip we only had a few nights at the Banff campground, but after looking at the maps and planning out what exactly I wanted to do in the area I realized that we were going to need a few more days and to go just a little farther north so I snagged us two nights in the actual Lake Louise campground. Since the transfer from Banff really wasn't that far we decided to do a morning activity in the Banff area before driving north to Lake Louise campground. We decided on a bike ride and there was a nice paved path that connected Banff to a town 20 miles south called Canmore. Dave had researched out that if we drove and parked in Canmore, then catch a bus with our bike back up to Banff then we could ride the entire 20 miles mostly downhill back to Canmore. We arrived in Canmore and set off to purchase bus tickets, we first tried the grocery store (which online said sold tickets) and the cashier said they didn't, so then we rode over to the community center/bus stop and once again no place to buy tickets. A friendly local pointed us in the direction of a drugstore that sold tickets and off we went a little stressed because we didn't have much time before the bus was suppose to arrive. Well, they did sell them at the drugstore but only in 10 ride cards and the lady was super slow. The bus only takes Canadian money (which we didn't have any) so we tried to get some cash back but she wouldn't let us do that. By this time the bus had probably already come so we came up with plan B and just started riding the path north towards Banff. We still had a nice time and rode up 10 miles and then turned around and rode back 10 miles. We had lunch at a super busy McDonalds afterwards where I got a special "only available in Canada" burger that was actually really yummy.

Then we drove up to the Lake Louise campground and got things set up. Right from our campground there was a river and a trail that we could ride our bikes on so of course we had to check it out and it was awesome! It was dirt, mostly smooth, right along the river and we could loop it up one side and back on the other. It was a fairly short ride so we actually did one and a half loops. 

We weren't quite done for the day though as I had one more thing that I wanted to do in the evening when the crowds died down and that was to visit Moraine Lake. Driving up to the Lake there was still a ton of cars but when we finally got to the parking lot there were actually a lot of parking spaces. This lake isn't quite as famous or get as much attention as Lake Louise but it was just as spectacular, if not more. Dave actually thought it was a little more scenic and declared it as "the best lake he's ever seen"! It had a magnificent blue color and amazing mountains coming right out of it. We were there at sunset so I feel that our pictures don't quite do it justice. We climbed up the "rock pile" and admired its' beauty from a great vantage point before walking along the shoreline for a little bit.