I’d like to say it was painful to leave Lake Louise, but it wasn’t.
The campground was packed with RV renters who for the most part didn’t know the etiquette of camping. The family next to us apparently could only communicate by shouting, and the “do not wash dishes or laundry in washroom sinks” didn’t apply to many of our neighbors.
We did truly enjoy the beauty of the Canadian Rockies. One day we took the 200+ kilometre drive up the Icefields Parkway from Lake Louise to Jasper. Dark craggy mountains draped with hanging glaciers line both sides of the roadway, which provide enough photo fodder to satisfy a National Geographic shooter. Last time I came through here was in the winter when the roadway was as white as the hills. This time the pavement was black, the peaks gray and runoff-engorged waterfalls silvery white.
In Jasper, we visited the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge where Dianne and I stayed a few years back on a winter ski visit and the deep gorge of Maligne Canyon where we took a winter hike. In the depths of winter, the stream is frozen and its walls lie draped with ice. Back then, the walk up felt like we were hiking up a rocky, glacial crevasse.
No canyon-bottom hikes this time. Raging with runoff, we looked down on a canyon roaring with water plunging over boulders and pouring down waterfalls.
The next day we drove down to Banff to do laundry, groceries and most importantly, stock up on beer and wine.
Located totally within the park, Banff has all the character of Aspen, Vail and Estes Park crammed into one packed town. The supermarket had fewer parking spaces than the average Starbucks and laundromats in this tourist-oriented town were few and far between.
But we succeeded in refilling the trailer pantry, restocking the trailer wine (and beer) cellar and reloading our trailer duffels with clean clothes. The Xterra gas tank is now topped up with fuel and we were ready to escape this incredibly beautiful but overcrowded tourist magnet.