So with that in mind, on Sept. 17 we ignored the advice to go see Lake Louise by 6 am at the latest or that parking would be impossible. Off we went up highway 1 at around 10 am, to seek our parking fortune.
The weather was still pretty cloudy. As we headed out, we saw a little more of the mountain across from the hotel though:
Weather was dismal up near Lake Louise, which we used to console ourselves that it was just fine that we couldn't get parked anywhere close to there, or at the other lake we wanted to see, Morraine Lake (the road there was even closed, as there were already too many people up there!) The cloud ceiling was so low there though that it probably was just as well that we couldn't get in.
I always have a plan B, so we headed back towards lower elevations, but took the scenic 1a highway this time. We stopped at a viewing point on the Bow River:
The back-up hike was Johnston Canyon, where we did (just barely) manage to get parked in the more distant overflow lot. Here is Ed as we head up the trail to the first waterfall. Traffic was heavy on the path, this is a rare moment when the hordes were mostly out of the frame:
The first waterfall:
The canyon walkway upstream from the first waterfall. Most tourists don't go past the first one, so the trail was a lot less crowded:
The second waterfall:
A bonus waterfall above the second one:
We then headed further south on highway 1a. Here is another viewing point over the Bow River:
We then visited a couple of second-tier scenic lakes, which are still really stunning to our eastern-North-American eyeballs. This one is Johnson Lake:
The next two are Lake Minnewanka. The weather became quite nice, with interesting clouds:
Back at the hotel, we finally got a full view of the local mountain:
Tomorrow we plan to drive up the Icefields Parkway, so don't go far ...
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