Tuesday 7 September 2010

With an appetite for more bear sightings, we set off to Lake Louise Gondola with enticements of possible grizzly bear sightings from the cable car. Lake Louise is an area of Banff National Park, renowned for its beauty. The cable car goes up a mountain about 10km away from Lake Louise, but it is visible from the summit.

Liam talked me into taking an open chair lift as opposed to a closed in cable car and so despite the cold and the height, we set off. All hikes in the area had been closed due to the presence of bears. Not far from the lower cable station, we spotted what we thought was a black bear foraging in a clearing in the alpine forest. Staff later assured us that this is in fact a young grizzly bear who has been occupying the area for the last few days.

At the top cable car station, we enjoyed the Rockies Wildlife Interpretive Centre and then decided to go for a hike to a lookout point higher up the mountain. This hike was open, but being the only ones on it, we made lots of noise singing and clapping as we went so as to warn any bears that humans were in the area. Despite all the noise, we saw a beautiful male mule deer and a coyote disappearing into the forest.

The scenic lookout was beautiful and we could see across the entire Bow Valley with it’s dark green lakes and hectare upon hectare of alpine forests. Across in the distance was the bright turquoise Lake Louise against a backdrop of mountain peaks nestling glaciers in its upper valleys. Back at the bottom we had a great barbecue dinner in the restaurant complete with log fire and I determined that I wanted to get a closer look at Lake Louise and the town in the next few days.