Heather & Sean's RV Adventures: Banff National Park/Lake Louise/Lake Moraine

August 31-September 2: Our morning started out great... and then Sean just had to look under the generator to find a small puddle of coolant.

After Sean searched for about 15 minutes, he traced the leak to a loose hose clamp. Easy fix, thank goodness!

Then we were headed toward Banff!

It's a lovely area, but the amount of people visiting was insane! We are not used to being around this many people, lol.

Sean tracked down a couple of candy shops and he found these gummies at one of them. He had recently been convinced that Pickleball was the best game ever and he had to try it (thanks Patti!). I'm sure it was coincidence, but reminded him to pester me about it, again, lol!

Bow River taken facing the sun.

Bow River taken away from the sun... it's glowing.

There are various art instillations installed along the Bow River Falls trail. The bottom photo was a funny one.

Bow Falls overlook.

Our hike got us a hungry! So, we found some junk food to eat, hoping it would be affordable.

This was our campground for all 3 days staying in Banff National Park, Lake Louise Overflow Parking.

The morning came quickly and we were up early to catch our bus to Lake Louise. We had to use a private shuttle because there was no availability on the park shuttle. It wasn't cheap, and if we do this again we will not use the private shuttles.

This view just might have been worth the expense of the shuttle... Our plan was to take the Lake Louise Lakeshore trail to Plain of Six Glaciers trail and teahouse, about 7 miles round trip.

Funny how the angle of the sun gives the lake so many different color variations.

Instagram moment!

Nearly to the Teahouse!

Viola!

They had an interesting menu, partly because they are limited in serving items that the employees can carry to the Teahouse daily or from their helicopter deliveries that occur twice a year.

The view was great from the second story balcony seating. We were chatting and looking at the scenery when I happened to see something move in the distance...

A Mountain Goat!!! Finally!

Our lunch and tea was served shortly after our discovery. I had the cheese sandwich (surprisingly delicious) and Sean had a vegan burrito with chips and salsa. We both got a tea (yes, Sean actually drank tea, which I picked out for him). I had a maple black tea and Sean had strawberry green tea. They were both very good, and Sean said he actually liked his tea!

When we were settling our check, I noticed the little multicolored hand written note on the cashier desk. Sean and I both looked at each other and instantly knew we were going to do this, so we told the cashier that we would volunteer for trash duty and she happily gave us a very hefty trash bag for us to take back with us, lol. We got 2 free tea bags out of it... why not?

We took turns hauling our bag of trash down the trail and got many odd looks from those who didn't know about the volunteering opportunity, and a couple of well wishes from those who did know.

We were minding our business with our bag of trash when all of a sudden...

Sean spotted another Mountain Goat right above us, lol!

Soon Lake Louise and the hotel came back into view. I'm not sure if you can tell in these pictures, but the water was super clear. In the bottom 2 photos above, there is a fish that we found swimming in one of the secluded pools near the boardwalk.

Come on bag of trash, you are almost home!

Look at the color! By the way, that canoe can be rented for $165 CAD/hour. No thank you...

Bag of trash goes home!

One last look around...

We were done faster than we thought with the hike and looking around the hotel and our scheduled pick up wasn't for another couple of hours. We tried to see if there was room on an earlier shuttle, but no luck, so we and another couple decided we would hike back to our cars. technically it wasn't far and it was downhill, but there was no actual trail or sidewalk, so we used the small space by the traffic barriers and it worked out just fine. At one point, we were able to take some trails and then we encountered closed trails on our route. Eventually, we were able to get down to the town and we bid farewell to our hiking companions because we had an important stop to make...

...Ice cream!

We eventually got back to the truck and made it home quickly to relieve the pups of their confines and enjoy the rest of the afternoon being lazy.

The next morning, Sean woke me early to say he finally got a shuttle reservation to Lake Moraine!

We couldn't believe the bright color blue of this lake! It was so breathtaking!

While we were walking back from the Rock Pile hike, there was a woman being helicoptered to an ambulance in the parking lot. I have no other info on this situation. Hopefully, she was okay after this...

We took the Lakeshore trail to the end and jumped from rock pile to rock pile through the glacial river. It was amazing to see the trees grow on hardly anything on top of the rocks.