To Lake Louise
Friday, August 8
Our Aster Lake backpack was now over. The clock had still not struck 3:30pm, giving us a reasonably generous amount of time to leave the Kananaskis area and drive north to Banff and the Lake Louise area, where we would reunite with friend Cassándra for another weekend of mountain stuff.
After some indecision, we chose to take the gravel-surfaced Smith-Dorrien road, rather than the paved route 40. The Smith-Dorrien road provided a substantial distance shortcut, and I felt that even with the lower road speed, we'd still come out ahead. Plus, the scenery of the Spray Lakes valley was likely to be very nice.
The choice proved sound, for it took us only an hour to drive from Peter Lougheed Provincial Park to the trans-canada highway at Canmore. We then started west through what is probably one of Canada's busiest and most popular national park corridors - highway 1 through Banff National Park.
courtesy JInnes
courtesy JInnes
courtesy JInnes
We established contact with Cassándra as we approached the Lake Louise area. She directed us up Lake Louise Drive to the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise. Cassándra works at this grand resort and had not quite yet gotten off of work.
Chateau on a gloomy evening
We met Cassándra outside the hotel and she invited us to her nearby apartment, where she graciously had offered us a place to crash for the next two nights.
We went out for a pleasant dinner at a local pub, and over dinner, we discussed the logistics of the next day's outing - a climb up the so-called "tourist route" on Mount Temple.
Foreboding-looking Temple
