5 July: Lake Louise
Our day started at 5.30 with the Crow family ordering breakfast. Of course the nights are very short this far north. However bags had to be ready for pick-up at 6.30. I love this service . Bags are collected from inside our room each morning and taken to our rooms at the next destination. No complaints.
We discovered that our breakfasts are $75 Candian each morning. Hmm I have some rice bubbles, some fruit and a cup of tea. We were advised to pay for a meal plan when we booked. Jolly good advice. We have paid for nothing at all on the trip about from a wine and a mojito, my new discovery.
During the morning passenger pick-up we watched one of these 4km trains passing by . Unbelievable!!!
For the 150th celebrations, one gift was free entry to all national parks throughout the country for all tourists. Normally it's $10.00pp.
Our journey took us through Jasper and Banff National Parks which National Geographic rates in the top 10 of the world. I can see why. If you want to know why, come and look at the 600 photos we took. Peter will put them on fb tonight when he cuts them down to 60. The rivers are running very high because of the late melt so the water flow was very powerful and all lakes were brimming . The excitement of the morning was 1 female elk.
We entered the Athabasca area with a waterfall drop of 23 meters and mountains of about 11,000 feet. The feature excursion was onto the Athabasca glacier which is shrinking rapidly as are all the others. We transferred from our coach on to the huge snowcats which drove us onto the glacier where we disembarked and wandered around for 20 minutes. At one stage the vehicle climbed a 32 degree incline - very slowly.
At 1.20pm we came across a bear jam and sure enough there was a black bear foraging alongside the high way totally unconcerned with the chaos she was causing. A Black Bear can be brown or cinnamon or red or white. It is smaller than a Grizzly and differently constructed.
By then we had crossed into Banff National Park and later crossed the North Saskatchewan River. The English language is entirely inadequate to describe the majesty of the environment .  One mountain rises 1 mile straight up from its base lake. Our coach driver kept stopping so that we could get out to get the perfect picture, and another and another.
And thus we arrived at our Chateau at Lake Louise to discover that due to a motor accident the place had been without power or water since 12.15 in temperatures exceeding 30 degrees. I haven't ascertained the capacity of this place yet but it is completely booked out. There was total chaos because nothing worked. However it is now 9.45pm and we have been fed and our bags have arrived. My bed is here and I'm collapsing into it to let Peter select a handful of hundreds of photos to illustrate this memorable day for you.