August 8 Banff

 Another free day and another excursion, this time to mountain lakes and waterfalls.  We waited in the Rimrock Resort lobby for the bus time, as this was a threatening day for rain.  The lobby bar (where we ate dinner last night) has a great view if it weren't for the haze and rain clouds.

First stop is Lake Louise.

Turquoise waters surrounded by mountains will be pretty much today's theme.  What I remember most about this lake is the Lake Louise Lodge which was our designated bathroom stop also.  The LLL wasn't all that interested in provided a rest stop service so the only public bathrooms they had were two customer rooms for both men and women.  The men's had a fair size line, so you can imagine the ladies'.

Next on our tour of mountain lakes, Moraine Lake.  This had a huge pile of logs at the exit where all of the fallen trees had clustered following the spring runoff.  More turquoise waters and tall mountains.

Driving to our next mountain lake we pulled off for a view of the Spiral Tunnels that we'll pass through tomorrow on the Rocky Mountaineer.  There are a pair of spiral tunnels bored through the mountains right here to get the train up (or down) without making it too steep for the train to negotiate. 

Not a mountain lake, but Natural Bridge, a narrow part of the river.  I can't figure out which river this is, either Emerald or Amiskwi, from the map.  It is pretty neat.

Loved these rocks

And yet another turquoise lake -- Emerald Lake.  It is surrounded by high mountains also, just not in this picture.

And there they are.  Haze removal really made this picture look like a hand watercolored postcard from the 1900s.

There is an Emerald Lake Lodge where you can stay.  We had lunch there, a standard bus tour hot buffet, and it was quite good.  Can't tell you anything about the rooms, but it's certainly set in a scenic location.

Here you can see someone, perhaps a guest at the ELL, enjoying aquatic activities on the lake in a pouring rain.  And it wasn't that warm.

Pretty much everyone was calling it quits on the paddling activities.

Last stop, Takakkwaw Falls.  It was a spectacular location, but also a VERY rainy location, so not many pictures that don't have raindrops on the lens.

Taken through the windshield of the bus going back to Banff.  These overpasses along Canada Highway 1 are there for animals to cross the road. Fences along the road funnel the animals into these overpasses (or underpasses in other locations) so they can still cover their natural territory after the intrusion of the road.