Lake Agnes
Tuesday 11 June, 2024
Lake Agnes
Beautiful Lake Agnes, high above Lake Louise, features a hike-in teahouse with incredible views. You can hike up to the teahouse, have your tea, ascend the Little and Big Beehives for even more dramatic views, and then descend by the Plain of the Six Glaciers, for an unbelievably outstanding day.
We did not manage to achieve this.
What we did manage to achieve was a parking spot at Lake Louise, where the trail starts. The parking spot cost a whopping CAD38.75! But, although Parks Canada recommends arriving no later than 06:00 to get a parking spot, we were able to get one in the overflow lot a little bit before 10:00.
Lake Louise was every bit as beautiful as we had always heard, a beautiful blue turquoise of glacial runoff.
I foolishly had had the idea that, as I had booked a campsite in "Lake Louise Soft-Sided Campground," the campground would be right on the lake. I imagined that we would be able to start our hikes right from camp and not have to move Mather, much less pay CAD38.75 to park him.
When we got to Lake Louise, I found out why the campground wasn't actually there--some early climbers had put a fancy hotel (now a Fairmount) in the spot where the campground would have gone. Photo by Eric.
We headed up the steep 7-km/4.5-mi trail toward the teahouse, a lovely but arduous commute for the workers. As we climbed, Eric found some snow and insisted that I take his picture with it. After all the snow we saw later in the trip, it seems ridiculous now that there was a point when a small pile of snow by the side of the trail seemed novel enough to photograph.
Eric spotted another hiker, coming the other way, with a sweatshirt proclaiming that they were a student of Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters (of X-Men fame). After they had passed us, he called back over his shoulder, "Did you wear that today because Banff sounds like, 'bamf'?" (This is the sound effect of one of the superheroes' powers, in the comics.)
"You know it!" came the reply.
The first beautiful stop along the trail was beautiful Mirror Lake, with Big Beehive above.
As we ascended toward Lake Agnes, more and more of the mud on the trail turned out to have ice rather than snow underneath it. We had to watch our footing carefully.
Eric photographed a beautiful waterfall just below the teahouse.
Agnes Falls.
Lake Agnes itself was a spectacular sight.
Eric took a picture of the lengthly line for the teahouse.
We decided that Eric would wait in the line while I did some more creative photography of Lake Agnes.
View looking up over the waterfall to Big Beehive from the teahouse.
Expansive view from teahouse.
Eric took my picture sitting at the teahouse with Lake Agnes behind me. Note how the weather in this picture has quickly changed from the previous few pictures.
Eric with our yummy food at the teahouse.
As we sat at the teahouse, first a sprinkle developed, then rain, then a thunderstorm started. Eric began to dread the hike down in the rain; I hoped that the storm would pass as we had our tea.
Having spent so much of my life in San Francisco, I have had countless amazing teahouse experiences. But I have to say that, while the tea itself was relatively unremarkable, the Lake Agnes Teahouse experience was wonderful and quite memorable. We sat in a covered area as the rain fell next to us. The views of the beautiful lake, the sound of the waterfall, the taste and warmth of the tea, and the smell of fresh-baking bread made for a delightfully soothing sensory experience. Despite the cold, I was very happy.
Reaching the washrooms (i.e., pit toilets) for the teahouse involved a treacherous hike up a short hill. Both of us wiped out on our way back down, probably on the same patch of ice, but no serious damage was done.
I turned out to be right that, by the time we had finished our meal and used the hike-up pit toilets, the thunderstorm was largely over and the rain had dwindled to a light sprinkle. However, given the lateness of the hour and the cold and rapidly changing weather, we agreed that we would be better off going back the way we had come rather than taking the much longer loop through the Plain of the Six Glaciers. At least we had had this amazing experience.
Eric took a picture of me looking up at the fog blowing through the mountains, the rain cover for my pack deployed.
Shortening our hike meant that we returned to camp in enough time for a good dinner and sleep. Eric made chicken fajitas.
This was a spectacular day in spite of the weather. Banff, it's beautiful!
Map of our Lake Agnes hike.
On to Moraine Lake.