Happy Canada Day - Mission (nearly) completed

If we thought we got up early yesterday to be at the Athabasca Glacier before the tourists, we surpassed ourselves today: The alarm clock rang at 6 o'clock so that we could quickly drive to Moraine Lake for the $20 view (the lake panorama was depicted on the Canadian $20 bill in earlier times) without breakfast. Yesterday, this was not possible at all due to the parking spaces being full... The internet says that if you drive to the lake before 6:30 a.m., you might be able to find a parking space at Moraine Lake...

Thorsten really wanted to go there, so we got up early and got in the car. But what can I say, at 6:30 a.m., the access to the lake was already closed. No chance!!! Full of incomprehension about this situation and completely disappointed, we had to turn back.

Since the traffic on the road has also increased, we decided to park the car in the public parking lot at Lake Louise (since we also had to give up our precious hotel parking space after checking out), in case we could still find a spot... Actually, we managed to get one of the few available parking spaces. Just a reminder: it's Monday morning, 6:45 a.m.

You can't imagine how many tourists were already on their way. Well, it's Canada Day, the national holiday, and therefore a long weekend for the locals. But what do we do when it's 'Germany Day' on October 3rd? We look forward to a day off and in the rarest of cases, we are tempted to get up in the middle of the night to spend the day at Lake Louise (or comparably at Otto-Maigler-See)... The Canadians seem to be a special people...and also the tourists from outside of Canada (we have often pointed out the nationalities that have 'caught our attention'...) seem to not need sleep and drive many kilometers in the morning to flood the place Lake Louise...

Alright, let's continue: We take advantage of the early sunshine and the special view of the lake to take some photos. Afterwards, we make our way through the crowds of tourists back to our hotel, have breakfast, finish yesterday's blog and pack our suitcases for check-out.

At check-out, we asked at the reception why no one can drive to Lake Moraine and why the road is already closed in the morning at half past six. They told us that there are only four or five parking spaces at Lake Moraine, which are of course quickly occupied. This gave us even more question marks, because no one can understand that...

Then we put on our hiking shoes and set off for our next hike of the day. And here, hiking takes a course that is not shared by both of us... We have to cover a one-way distance of initially 4 km. The differences in altitude are not insignificant. Thank goodness the path runs through a forested area, so that the view down into the depths does not have to be perceived (by the height-fearing Günther)...

After about an hour of a tough climb, we reach the lake named Lake Agnes via the Lake Agnes Trail, with the connected teahouse. It's very busy here and you have to wait just as long for a table as you do to go to the restroom... So everything is suboptimal... and the view from above of Lake Louise is not even available to the horrified hikers...

Oh well, and then we continue uphill, because we still have to come back to the lakeshore of Lake Louise via the Litte Behieve Trail with a spectacular view of Lake Louise, then via the High Line Trail and the Plain of the Sixth Glaciers Trail... Complaints from the fellow hiker about the increasingly long distance were deliberately ignored (however, that's part of the game as well...).

When we reached the lake, we realized that we had hiked a total of over 15 kilometers. Of course, everything went well and the altitude was not really a problem for Günther, but occasionally it was a bit exciting...

All in all, it was a beautiful hiking trail, with a lot of variety and great views...

Our attempt in the early afternoon to still get to Lake Moraine with one of the bus shuttles failed because we would have had to wait for one and a half hours to get a seat. And then we would have had to take the next bus back within three quarters of an hour in order to get back with the last shuttle...

So we decided to leave Lake Louise without having seen Lake Moraine and head towards Banff.

Here, too, there were crowds of people. By chance, we quickly found a parking space and wandered through the town. Cheap souvenir shops were everywhere (we still needed a magnet), which couldn't really offer us anything...

A funny experience in Banff, however, was that when you stand at an intersection as a pedestrian and wait for the traffic light to turn green, you can not only cross the road, but also the entire intersection. This means that all vehicles at the intersection must have a red light so that pedestrians can cross the road in all directions. It looks really strange when suddenly everyone starts rushing in all directions and you have to have your eyes everywhere to not be run over or run into someone...

From Banff to Canmore, where we will stay for the next two days, it is only 30 kilometers. When we arrived here, the next problem awaited us. Thorsten's suitcase lock, which he activated on the suitcase because of the storage at the hotel, could no longer be opened at the Days Inn in Canmore. The code no longer worked... How are we supposed to access the contents of the suitcase now? According to the internet, the only chance was to try out the four number wheels 9999 times, starting from 0001 up to 9999... some combination would then open the lock. However, that was not supposed to be our evening activity, so we had to ask the nice lady at the reception if a handyman had a bolt cutter... We were then referred to a hardware store vis-à-vis the railway line, where an even friendlier store manager cracked the lock with a bolt cutter. In return, we bought a new TSA lock there and made sure that it only has three number wheels. Then next time we only have to try until 999...

For that, we treated ourselves to a valuable refreshment: a can of Heineken, 0.33 l for the equivalent of 2 euros... You don't treat yourself to anything else... Cheers!