Moraine Lake, Canada
Can you ever see enough crystal blue, glacier fed lakes? I think not. We had seen about ten prior to driving the 14 km from Lake Louise out to Moraine Lake. A sign in Lake Louise warned of congested traffic and limited parking. Pfft I thought, we’re in the middle of nowhere in the Canadian Rockies – how could there possibly be that much traffic that we should think twice about visiting?
Apparently there could be that much traffic.
Cars lined the road for a kilometre before we reached the car park, which had enough spots for well over 50 cars. Clearly everyone else had ignore the warning sign too. This must be some lake we thought, why else would there be so many people here? Hiking perhaps?
We finally got a spot and walked to the edge of the lake, preparing to be amazed.
Hmm, its ok, we thought. That squirrel on the rock is pretty cute. The lake did not seem all that spectacular from the edge, where drifted logs had piled up. Are we missing something? Maybe we had just become Lake Snobs. Seen one lake seen them all.
We did the obligatory climb to the top of the rockpile, with all the other tourists. We rounded a corner and – bam! There’s the view people are talking about. Now we can see why this lake is featured on Canada’s 20 dollar bill. I would love to see it in winter, with snow on the cliffs and mountains.
Absolutely stunning. We ended up just sitting there for 20 or so minutes just taking it all in. That blue colour, the crystal sunshine, canoes meandering across the lake, mountains, glacier silt piles. It may have been the eleventh lake we had seen in 5 days, but Moraine Lake was now our number one.
Well played Canada, well played.
