When we booked our holiday I hadn’t realised that shuttle tickets were required to visit Lake Moraine and Lake Louise. When I eventually found out, they had all sold out so I researched other ways to see the lakes which included a private tour (which was very expensive) or hiring bikes and cycling (which was also expensive). However, a limited amount of new tickets are released 48 hours in advance so whilst we were in Whistler I logged on at 8am and was able to get tickets for our arrival day. I had booked us the 10am shuttle which meant we had to be at the shuttle park & ride by 9.30am meaning we needed to leave Golden at about 8am as we had over a one hour drive.

Moraine Lake

We arrived in plenty of time boarded our shuttle for the short journey and reached Moraine Lake. It was quite a misty morning but the water was so peaceful and blue!

^{Lake Moraine at 10.30am}

We followed the walking trail to the top end of the lake which was about 1km before turning back around. There were loads of places where you could leave the path and climb down to the lake which we did and when the sun came out from behind the clouds the blue in the water really showed up!

There were a few people kayaking on the Lake which looked lovely but the kayak rental was over $100 for an hour per kayak so we decided against it!

Tom & Izzy spent ages playing on tree trunks and seeing who could find the biggest stick!

^{Fun at Lake Moraine}

We really enjoyed Lake Moraine – it was probably helped by the fact it was quite quiet but as we returned to the shuttle stop it was starting to get very busy.

Lake Louise

We boarded the first shuttle that arrived which drove us to Lake Louise. Lake Louise was much busier than Moraine but equally as beautiful.

We walked along the lake for a couple of hundred meters to avoid the crowds where we found some rocks to play on.

^{Playing on the rocks at Lake Louise}

It was lunch time at this point and we were getting hungry but there was no where to get any food apart from the Fairmont Hotel. We decided we had seen all we needed to (we were hoping to get shuttle tickets later in the week so that we could do a hike) so headed back on the shuttle to the park & ride. There was a huge cafe there so we all bought lunch – I chose poutine which is chips, cheese and gravy – before setting off to Canmore where our Airbnb was.

On the way to Canmore we saw a view point overlooking a lake so pulled in. There was an animal playing in the grass which we later discovered was a hoary marmot and we spent quite a long time watching him – he was not at all scared of people!

We checked into our AirBnb which was an apartment in a ski resort complex so there were gym facilities and a pool and we chilled for the rest of the evening.

^{Our apartment in Canmore}