The last skiing destination for our group in February 2024 were the ski slopes outside Lake Louise Town. We had stayed on top of the mountain at ‘Sunshine’ outside Banff so our journey further north to Lake Louise was fairly complicated. We had received limited information on the best way to get to Lake Louise and in the end we decided we would catch the local bus from outside the school in Banff with the understanding that this would take us to centre of the town of Lake Louise. We would have been better off taking the Bus shuttle from Brewster’s Bus Station…it would have been cheaper and less fraught with issues. To add to our bus issues, it started to snow heavily on the ride north and by the time we stopped at the Lake Louise Visitor centre, it was snowing
Three of our compatriots were staying at the Lake Louise Inn and my wife and I had decided to splash out and stay at the famous Fairmont Chateau. The town of Lake Louise looked like it had shut down. The Visitor Centre had little to offer us except the advice that the Lake Louise Inn was down the road, over the bridge and on the right. There were no taxis and the worst that could possibly happen to us is that we would freeze to death in a blizzard as we walked to the hotel down the road. I believed it was a minor miracle that we survived the walk to Lake Louise Inn.
In the end I was quite surprised with the comforts immediately provided by Lake Louise Inn. It was lunch time so we were immediately escorted to the lunch room and the food was great. The hotel concierge helpfully phoned the Fairmont Chateau and a Hotel Car was sent to fetch us …it looked like we were going to survive the trip from Banff to Lake Louise!
The photo on the right of Lake Louise is obviously taken in Summertime. (Courtesy Wikipedia.) The photo below is the Fairmont Chateau not long after our arrival. It was still snowing and it looked to me like all the facilities of the hotel were going to be covered in snow during our stay.
The photo to the left here was taken from the window of our room in the Fairmont. It shows where the buses and taxis pulled up with passengers having to survive the 10 metre walk to the door of the hotel. However the rest of the folk at the Fairmont didn’t seem too worried by the continuously falling snow…lots of customers took the opportunity to go for a walk on the lake and its shoreline.
After lunch on our first day at the Fairmont, we decided to go for a walk along the lake front.
It was probably a good thing that as a couple we decided we would not dance on the icy surface of Lake Louise like the other couple we came upon who were preserving images of skating and dancing as the snow fell
FOGTRAVEL 