Christmas at Canmore, Post 4: Snowshoeing at Lake Louise

On Christmas Eve, we went snowshoeing at Lake Louise in Banff National Park. We hired the snowshoes in the little town of Lake Louise, and then headed to the stunning frozen lake to start our 7km trek.







As we walked around the lake to reach the start of the trail to Lake Agnes, we passed the area of Lake Louise that had been cleared for ice skating, and there were a few skaters out. An amazing castle-like ice sculpture was on the ice for the skaters to weave through and around. At the edge of the ice rink were shelves containing the skaters' regular shoes, and a brazier for much needed hand-warming. And for Christmas sleigh rides, there were two beautiful black horses pulling a large black wooden sleigh around the lake. Magical!







Trying to figure out how to attach our snowshoes...





The trek we did was 7kms, with the halfway point being "The Teahouse", the highest point of our hike. This means the first 3.5kms were mostly uphill, so maybe we'll just skip over how Megan and I felt towards the end of the first half, and just show you the pretty photos. :P (I was suffering from a lack of fitness and Megan was suffering from a lack of food... as due to a particularly ridiculous lack of planning, we had set out on a 7km hike having each eaten just two pancakes for breakfast, and having only two muesli bars between the four of us - and I think Justin brought those along unknowingly!!)

We took MANY photos and I have uploaded quite a lot of them to Picasa, so I will just try to include the highlights in this entry and you can look at the Picasa album if you are interested in seeing the rest! Here it is, our incredible winter wonderland...































Rapid-shutter tree-shaking...


Some of Megan's photos (with wide angle lens)...



















The halfway mark: "The Teahouse" (which was closed, so didn't help the hunger/ toilet issues)...



And a video compilation of Justin's antics in the snow (which may help emphasise how soft and powdery the untrodden snow is!)...

The return trip was much easier and faster, due to being downhill. We were very glad to reach the bottom. Then, after a quick walk out onto the frozen lake, we were even gladder to warm up at the fire, return our snowshoes, and head back to our cozy condo to prepare for a blissfully lazy Christmas Day indoors after our three full-on days of outdoor snow experiences!

Christmas at Canmore, Post 3: Johnston Canyon

After our morning of dogsledding, we had lunch in Banff...









... and then drove half an hour to Johnston Canyon. This was a place Megan had come across in her online research - the site of a number of frozen waterfalls, which is what we all wanted to see! Even the long dirt road from the highway to the Canyon carpark was absolutely beautiful, lined with snow-laden pine trees.

Due to arriving mid afternoon, we only walked to the Lower Falls and back (a 1 mile round trip), but I can't even begin to describe how spectacular this was - even before we reached the large frozen waterfall at the halfway mark. We were walking above the river that ran through the base of the canyon, on a wood and metal boardwalk cantilevered (I asked Ben for the right word :P) out of the vertical rock face. The river below was totally frozen over, with layers of powdery, white, untouched snow coating the ice. In places there were holes in the ice and we could hear the water tinkling along under it. We had some fun shaking snow out of the trees...

















**The next 7 photos are Megan's**















These logs looked like they had just had a tonne of wedding cake icing dumped over them...



And all of that wasn't even what we'd come to see! THIS is what we'd come to see...

**The next 5 photos are Megan's**

So that's what a frozen waterfall looks like! Breathtaking, isn't it?!

The viewing platform that most of the waterfall photos were taken from was actually reached through a little tunnel, about 5m long. The third photo below shows the view from the path just above Lower Falls - the bridge leading to the tunnel, and the frozen waterfall visible through the gap in the rock...







And here are a few pics from the return trip...













For more Christmas in Canmore photos, see the links under "Our photo albums" in the sidebar, above right.