The Best of the Canadian Rockies For our September 2007 vacation, we took a Tauck tour of the Canadian Rockies. We started in Calgary, Alberta, and traveled to Kananaskis, Lake Louise, Jasper Park, and ended the trip in Banff. This was one of the best North American tours that we've been on. Below
is a picture of Calgary that I took as we landed. The Canadian
Rockies, in the background, are relatively close. The picture to
the right are of wild sheep near our hotel at our first stop in
Kananaskis country. |
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| We took a short, two-hour flight from Los Angeles and then met our tour group at the Calgary airport in the afternoon. We got on the bus and drove directly to the Delta Lodge at Kananaskis, our stop for the night. The Delta Lodge is situated in the foothills in the Rockies. The pictures below are of our room, and the view of the woods from our window. Just a short walk through the woods brings to a spectacular overlook of a beautiful valley. | ||||||
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| I was really surprised when I walked through the woods and came upon this view. So surprised, that I went back to the room so that I could bring Roberta back with me. | ||||||
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| Above is a panorama of the valley. Clicking on it will bring you to a much larger version. | ||||||
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| A picture of our bus the next morning at the hotel and a picture taken from the bus of the Trans-Canada Highway. | ||||||
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| The day started out cold and rainy, and then stayed that way. Above, pictures of Moraine Lake which is close to Lake Louise. Below, the natural bridge the on the Yoho River. | ||||||
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Above and left, Emerald Lake is surrounded by a forest of Engelmann spruce, as well as many peaks more than of more than 9,000 feet. It's covered in ice most of the year. | |||||
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| We stopped for the night at the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise. It's the only hotel that's situated right on the lake. If you're thinking of taking a trip to the Canadian Rockies, this hotel and the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel are two places you really should consider staying. The above right picture is the view from our room. Tauck Tours gets a preference on lake view rooms. If you want, the front desk will call you early in the morning so that you can watch the sunrise over the lake. | ||||||
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Built in 1890, two years after its sister hotel, The Fairmont Banff Springs, the hotel building was a simple wooden structure. Visitors to Lake Louise numbered no more than 100 in a summer season, and were mainly climbers, artists and scenery photographers. In the early 1900s, visitors to the area increased to more than 5,000 and this was considered enough to demand an expansion of the hotel. Two Tudor-style, half-timbered wings were added to the original structure. On July 3, 1924, a fire destroyed most of the hotel. Within a year Canadian Pacific Railway rebuilt a new eight-story brick wing, and changed the hotel name to Chateau Lake Louise. Up until 1982, the Chateau operated only as a summer resort. |
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| Above, a few pictures from the other end of the lake looking back at the hotel, and pictures from one of the dining rooms. After lunch, we left for Jasper. We stopped along the way at an overlook of Peyote Lake, one of the most beautiful sights on the whole trip... and yes... that really is the color of the water! | ||||||
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| The pictures above of us are to give you some perspective of how high we were above the lake. Clicking on the panorama below will bring you to a much larger version. | ||||||
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| On most multi-day bus tours, there is usually a seat rotation schedule so that everyone gets to sit in the front at least once. I took the pictures above from our seats in the front row. | ||||||
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