Alberta Trip - Day 8 - Town of Banff and Peyto Lake

Peyto Lake, Banff National Park.

Today was a relatively slow day for us. We spent the morning doing laundry at the town laundromat. While we waited we had breakfast at Wild Flour Bakery on Bear Street. They have such cute names for streets in Banff.

After finishing our laundry we decided to walk around town. Of course we had ice cream when we passed the COWS ice cream shop on Banff Avenue. It's a bit pricey at $6 for two scoops. But with 16% butterfat it's really tasty.

We walked along the Bow River towards Bow Falls next. The mosquito situation was really bad there. There were more mosquitos here than when we were in the back country for some reason. Weird.

At the falls you had a decent look at the iconic Banff Springs Hotel which overlooked it. We didn't go in. We just admired it from afar.

After spending some time by the falls we headed back to our vehicle which, by this time, had a $30 parking ticket on it. Technically we were only supposed to park for two hours. We were there five. No excuses. Our next destination would be Peyto Lake an hour north on Highway 1 and 93.

Peyto Lake is a bright, blue-green, glacier fed lake in Banff National Park. Like all glacier fed lakes it gets its colour from "rock flour". Rock flour consists of fine-grained, silt-sized particles of rock, generated by grinding of bedrock by glacial erosion.

On the day we went it was threatening rain in the afternoon. So the colour of the water was muted. The viewing platform is only a 10-minute walk from the parking lot. Very close. But not much of a hike if that's what you were looking for.

We left Peyto Lake by around 7:30 and got back to Lake Louise Campground (where we were scheduled to spend the next three nights) 40-minutes later.

I can't remember if we checked in and set up our tents first or if we grabbed dinner. We were pretty hungry and at a loss of where to go to eat. Lake Louise Village was nearby. So we decided to go there. It's not really a village, but a small strip mall. It seemed to have only one restaurant the Lake Louise Village Grill & Bar, so we went there.

The restaurant was kind of run down. It's run by Chinese people which is kind of odd for that area. Their website says they offer an affordable alternative to other eating establishments in the area, but I can't quite agree with that. A simple 5-ounce burger starts at $10.95 and goes up from there. A plate of chicken fried rice goes for $15.95. You could get something similar in Toronto for 1/3 the price.

Later, at our campsite, we faced a bit of a predicament. Technically we were only allowed to set up two tents. Up until that point the six of us had been sharing three. Emily and Lewis slept in the van.