Most everyone who told me about Lake Louise said it’s a beautiful place, despite the throngs of tourists. The village is nothing more than a few hotels, restaurants, gas stations and stores to cater to the tourists. The lake itself, however, is quite beautiful. The Chateau Fairmount Lake Louise is a very famous hotel that sits on the shoreline. From the lakeside it looks quite imposing, but once you climb high above the lake on one of the many trails in the area, it diminishes in stature a bit. 
I heard one guy saying that a standard room there goes for $800/nt. That’s enough to pay for a few months of camping for me. I think it would probably be up to my brother, Jim, and his wife, Carol’s standards, though I don’t think Jim would be able to get a room comp’ed there like he usually tries to do. Abbey got to check the place out from the shoreline trail. Having recovered from the previous two traumatic days of high winds and thunderstorms she was ready to go. She walked me around for about an hour and a half before I brought her back to the RV and struck out on some of the more strenuous trails without her. The views from high above the lake were pretty incredible. The canoes on Lake Louise looked like little more than dots on the water. I was amazed at how many people actually made the climb up to the Lake Agnes Teahouse. 
It’s only a couple of miles but you go up about 1300 ft. in elevation. I was wondering if the staff has to hike up everyday because there certainly was no road. 
I passed on the tea because I didn’t really want a pot by myself and the service didn’t look speedy. I guess they figure everyone is pretty tired and wants a long rest anyways. After leaving the teahouse I was in for a steep climb up to a place called Big Beehive, having done Little Beehive on the way up to Lake Agnes. Still not sufficiently satisfied with all these great views 
I decided to do the full loop and go to the Plain of the 6 Glaciers. I was thinking that it couldn’t be much higher than I already was, but I found out that you have to go down to pick up the trail and then you go back up. Needless to say I was pretty tired when I got to the plain. It was pretty cool though, but I was a bit disappointed that no chunks broke off the glacier while I was there. A large piece broke off about an hour before I got there. Luckily, the way back to the beginning was all downhill ‘cause I was pretty beat.
There was another area around Lake Louise that I wanted to hike but you had to be in a group of 6 due to all the grizzly activity in the area. The buffalo berries are in season and it is one of their favorite foods so they are out in full force. Some areas have even been closed to hikers because of the bears, but there are still plenty of hikes to do. I was going to go to the trail head early the next morning to try and hook up with a group, but decided I was too tired and needed a light day. The weather was as nice as it had been the day before. Ever since the thunderstorms on Wednesday things had really improved and the smoke had pretty much cleared out. So Abbey and I did a hike about 3 miles into Boom Lake. 
I was hoping she could swim while I ate lunch, but the rocky shore wasn’t really conducive to it. Instead she went hunting for things in the woods and unfortunately found a frog that I didn’t notice until it was too late. It was still alive when I pulled her back, but I don’t think it lasted too long after that. The rest of the day we hung out in Banff before going to another campground. I had registered earlier in the day and left a chair in my spot so people wouldn’t think it was empty. I was pretty ticked when we got back and found my chair gone. The next night we got back fairly late and found that they had taken my ticket stub off the post as well. I was happy to move on from that campground, especially since the train seemed to run right through it several times a day.
On Saturday I tried to take Abbey for a hike early so I could go up to a place called Sunshine Meadows by bus later in the morning. There’s a place called Johnston Canyon not far from the campground that has a couple of nice waterfalls. We got there early before the crowds, but things didn’t go too well. They had these concrete and steel catwalks built into the canyon walls in places where there wasn’t enough room for a trail. I was amazed they went through that much trouble to put a trail up the canyon. If I had remembered my camera I could’ve shown you pictures. Well, Abbey wasn’t too fond of these catwalks, especially when they made noises, but I managed to get her most of the way to the upper falls without too much coaxing. As the falls got louder and the trail got more crowded, though, she got more nervous. It took a while to get her all the way back and I had to make sure that I didn’t look too mad or frustrated in front of all the other people. Let’s just say it wasn’t a fun walk. Sunshine Meadows turned out a bit better. You drive to the parking lot of Sunshine Village ski resort and they take you up on a shuttle bus to the upper lodge. I remember once when Mary Beth and I first went to Germany we went to hike Alpspitz, the second highest mountain in Germany. We decided to save a few bucks and hike up instead of taking the gondola. Well, by the time we got to the top of the gondola run I was so tired I didn’t even have enough energy to go get a beer at the lodge. Luckily, Mary Beth still did so got the beers while I laid down on one of the conveniently placed lounge chairs. That beer was probably one of the best beers I ever tasted, second only to the ice cold free beer at the Heineken Brewery in Amsterdam. The worst part was some of the best hiking started from the top gondola station, but we were way too tired to do anymore. Ever since then I’m always willing to spend the money to take a bus, gondola or whatever to get up to where the good hiking starts. 
The views from the trails around Sunshine Meadows were nice, but I don’t know if I would do it again unless the wildflowers were in bloom. We were a few weeks too late. And the $5 bottle of beer just didn’t measure up to that one on top of Alpspitz. At least I wasn’t as tired. Nonetheless I decided to treat myself to dinner at a Mexican place in Banff. The food was actually pretty good and the beer tasted pretty good too. I sat at the bar like I usually try to do and met a few of the locals so it was an interesting night.
On Sunday, I was pretty tired and wasn’t sure how Abbey would be after my frustration of the previous morning. I found a nice easy walk in Banff that we could do and figured that might work for her. She was fine except it turned out to be popular with horses so I had to try to keep her from eating all the horse dung. It’s not easy finding a trail that works for both of us any more. After eating lunch and working on the computer some she was getting restless so I decided to give it one more shot. We went to Lake Minnewanka (when we lived in Woodstock, Lake Minnewaska was one of our favorite places to hike) where Abbey got to swim for a while. 
To my surprise she perked right up and we went for a fairly long hike along the lake shore and then up a canyon. It turned out to be a beautiful hike. The stream in the canyon was incredibly clear and the crowds thinned out after a while. She seemed pretty satisfied at the end of the hike and I was pretty happy too.
The next morning Abbey was still tired from the day before so I hiked up to Bourgeau Lake by myself. The lake was pretty high up above the trailhead but it didn’t take as long as I expected. The winds had changed though, and the smoky skies were back. You could still see everything but it was very hazy and not worth taking any pictures. After having lunch at the lake, it was still kind of early so I decided to keep going up to Harvey Pass. It was quite a climb, but the exercise felt good. By the time I got back Abbey had regained her energy so we stopped at a lake on the way to the campground. She stayed in the water until she was shivering, came out long enough to dry off a little and went back in. After an hour she finally had enough so we left.
Today, Tuesday, is laundry day. Laundry in Canada is quite a bit more expensive - $3 a load. Many things are more expensive here – food, gas, laundry, beer. I wasn’t expecting so much of a difference though it could be that I’m in very touristy places. Maybe the rest of Canada isn’t so bad. The exchange rate isn’t what it used to be either – US$1 buys you about C$1.10 or so depending on where you exchange. I just use my ATM and credit card. They seem to be best.
Well I woke up this morning to thunderstorms so I know it won’t be a good day for Abbey. It has been raining all morning and looks like it will most of the day. So we’re saying goodbye to Banff and heading south into an area called Kananaskis Country. There are several provincial parks there and it is still in the Rockies. I’m hoping the weather will clear up soon and we can enjoy a little bit more of the mountains before leaving Canada and crossing back into the States in Montana.