2017 Alaska adventure - Banff National Park, British Columbia, Canada

Our plan today was to go to Lake Louise or Lake Moraine walk around and look at the turquoise blue waters. However, the parking lots for both lakes were full. So we came up with Plan B which was to go up on the chair lift for the Lake Louise ski resort. This was a great plan. Although we did not see any wildlife we did see the beautiful glaciers surrounding both lakes. We did do a little hiking in hopes of spotting a grizzly, but none were to be found. The views though were spectacular. We returned on the chairlift and decided to have lunch at one of the outdoor restaurants at the resort. The weather was beautiful and we sat on the large outdoor deck scanning the slopes (again for grizzlies), people watching, and again watching the scenery. It was a lovely lunch and then we decided to try to visit Lake Moraine again. We arrived at the entrance to the parking lot to find that again that it was full. But the guard at the entrance advised that if we sat in the rest area across the road and watched, he was sure that they were going to allow more cars to enter. We did just that. After sitting at a picnic table for maybe 3 minutes he waved to us to come over. After hopping back into the truck we were able to find a parking space very close to the Lake. Lake Moraine is a beautiful lake. The water is turquoise blue due to light reflecting off tiny particles of glacial silt carried down from the mountain glaciers. It is such a peaceful lake. The blue colors change due to different angles of the sun and shadows. We walked along the shoreline for about 1.5 miles and then returned.
After spending time at the lake we decided to head back to our campsite but made a detour to check out an overlook on the highway for spiral tunnels. The tunnels are train tunnels carved into Kicking Horse Pass. The tunnels circle deep into the mountains on both sides of the valley. The two giant underground loops that the trains follow are the spiral tunnels. A couple of minutes after we arrived, a long freight train arrived. At one point we could see the beginning, middle, and end of the train going through each of the 3 tunnels at the same time. What an engineering marvel. After we made sure there were no derailments, we headed back to our trailers – ending another successful day of appreciating this wonderful land given to us by God. Tomorrow we continue our travels north into Canada.