Lake Louise
Photography has brought me so many places and adventures into my life that I would have never otherwise experienced. This summer, we had the great honor of traveling to Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada, for a wedding. And of course we made an entire week’s trip out of it. Part one was a wonderful road trip through the Canadian Rockies. Lake Louise is located in Banff National Park, and it’s adjacent to Jasper National Park just to the north. The entire weekend was filled with beautiful mountains, glaciers, and those distinctive blue alpine lakes.
We landed in Calgary, rented a car, and drove straight over to the town of Banff.
Banff (the town, located inside the National Park), is quite touristy and is full of shops and restaurants geared toward visitors. We had a lovely dinner and then checked in to hour hotel over by Lake Louise.
Morning views from our hotel balcony at the Lake Louise Inn. And embarking on a little road trip up north through Banff and into Jasper. We pulled over when we saw a bunch of other cars pulled over, and this is what they were all looking at — a black bear! We kept our distance and left before we could find out where mama bear was hiding.
Our first alpine lake sighting, Bow Lake. These lakes in Banff are all such a unique shade of blue, thanks to the minerals scraped into the water by glaciers.
Northbound into the Columbia Icefields. Alex had hurt his leg playing softball a week before this trip, so he gamely walked around everywhere in his boot.
Glaciers!
We did not actually go walk on the glaciers (maybe not worth it for someone injured, in a boot), but we admired the view over lunch!
Rain in the distance. It rained on and off all day.
We also saw some very impressive waterfalls. Crazy that you can stand right next to it…
But it would be very bad to fall in.
Dodge Charger, our rental car for the week! I did all the driving, since Alex’s right leg was the one he hurt. Otherwise he usually does all the heavy lifting on our road trips. But honestly, we’re very lucky that we’re generally so well matched in our travel tolerances and preferences, and we have really embraced road trips, especially over the course of the pandemic.
Crossing from Jasper back into Banff. (These are two sides of the same sign, haha).
Rainbow!
We ended the day at the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, the venue for the next day. Dinner at Walliser Stube.
And a bit of scouting around the stunning views of Lake Louise behind the hotel!
Wedding day! Alex got to play guest while I played photographer.
Such a beautiful place.
The next day, we set out on a pre-booked bus (required for access) to visit Lake Moraine.
Mini hike around the lake.
And a short walk up to the viewpoint on top. Wow! So blue!
One more visit to Lake Louise, since the bus has a free stop back there. And it happens to be Canada Day! Perfect for a photo op with some Mounties.
And for lunch, a visit to this former train station-turned-restaurant.
So lovely.
Inside is a little museum, an ode to its train station past.
And a final look at the Bow River before driving back down to Calgary for part two of the trip!
Anna Wu is a wedding and portrait photographer based in San Francisco. She compulsively documents and blogs all of her daily adventures. Follow her on instagram and view more of her professional work at annawu.com.
