Today’s weather certainly matched our destination du jour…what’s better on a rainy day than a hot cup of tea? I will explain…
We started by stopping by the Fairmont Banff Springs for a look around one of the nicest castles…er…hotels around. Exploring the grounds and the interior were both amazing and the pictures don’t do it justice.
We then headed up to Lake Louise to hike the Plain of the Six Glaciers Trail, which leads to one of Lake Louise’s TWO tea houses. The story behind the tea houses is that the only way to reach Lake Louise was by train back in the early 1900’s. This, naturally, was something only the wealthy could afford, so to lure them to the park for a visit they built the tea houses as a way to promise them the comforts of home whilst out in the rugged wilderness. Nowadays, it’s a pretty cool destination – they fly in their supplies at the start of the season, the wait staff must hike in/out (they live in cabins around the tea house during their 5-day shift), and boil their water with butane, as they have no electricity.
The hike was scenic and just about the right grade of uphill to not feel so terrible while climbing the 1000ft to the teahouse, located at 6800 ft (or so my commemorative t-shirt says). We had hopes of the sun poking out, as the tops of the LeFroy and Victoria Glaciers were covered in clouds, but any glimmer of sun was soon followed by patches of rain, and in one instance, sleet! Thus, warm tea and some snacks after hiking up a mountain in cold-ish/wet weather was a welcome break, and by far, the coolest hiking destination to date! Many times we hike just to get to the top – in this case we hiked to get a spot of tea before turning around to head back via the Highline Trail to the Lake Agnes Tea House.
Thankfully the downhill from here wasn’t too terrible on the knees and we took some nice pictures of the lake (we saw a bride and groom freezing their butts off doing the same!) before heading to the car for a warm change of dry clothes. We made the hour-long drive down the “10-mile hill” to Golden, BC, where we will be staying the next few nights as a hopping off spot for more adventures in this beautiful patch of the Rockies!
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