Immediately we left the tourists behind and headed up the Lake Agnes Tea house Trail. It is quite a tough hike gaining 400m vertically along the 3.5 km trail. When you get close to the top you come out of the forest at Mirror Lake (which is very uninteresting). From there you can see the Big Beehive (below) and the top of the escarpment that the tea house sits.
As you head a bit further up the trail you see the Lake Agnes Falls (pictured slightly right of centre in the photo above) and just to the right of that, the tea house. The Falls run off the escarpment at the tea house down to Mirror lake below. Truth be told, they aren't the most spectacular falls we've seen over the last couple of months, but at least they distract you from the last steep section of climb.
Finally the top of the trail. The Tea House sits at the outlet stream of Lake Agnes above the Falls. Our legs were burning and we were quite glad to rest for a little while. Unfortunately for Kerri (my little tea addict), the tea we had come for was horrendously expensive and it was decided to drink some water instead.
The outlook across Lake Agnes (below) was really quite nice. There are a couple of trail options from this point, one of which is to skirt the right side of the lake and up and over the ridge to the left of shot. You can branch off this trail and climb to the top of the beehive. Not really an option by that stage. Maybe another day. We instead headed down the steeper of two paths back to Mirror Lake. Fortunately we had followed the easier one coming up.
After descending back to Mirror Lake we hiked along the high-line trail toward the valley at the far end of Lake Louise. About a kilometre along the trees gave way to this view. We were about 400m above the lake at this point and could see quite far down the Bow Valley toward Banff.
The photo below shows the incredible turquoise colour that is typical for most of the lakes in Banff National Park. You'll notice the Fairmount at the far end of the lake. Fortunately the tourists are very hard to see when you are this far away (about 2.5 kms.)
If you look at the big hill behind the hotel, you will notice it is scathed by a bunch of tracks through the trees. That is actually the Lake Louise Ski area. Expect some pictures from there in winter. It's likely to be one of my favoured ski resorts around these parts.
After a the relatively flat high-line trail, we descended down a rugged and steep trail back to the head of Lake Louise. Unfortunately we met up with another trail about half way down and mistakenly gave way to a tour group on horses. The horses were a bit unsteady on the steep track and they slowed us down quite a bit. To make matters, they kept leaving little land mines along the way that stunk something rotten.
Fortunately, at the bottom of the descent, the tour guide stopped the horses for a drink in the glacial stream that feeds the lake.
