Louise and Agnes

The morning started early, with snowdozers disrupting any human dozers by scraping off the last remaining centimetre of snow, and probably a few millimetres of tarmac as well. I have come to the conclusion that Canadians hate snow with a passion, or that the Banff Centre employs too many people.

We are now halfway through the week, and it starts to make sense not to try to complete my conversion to GMT-7 (Canadian Mountain Time) as I will be flying back two days from now. Seen in that light, I should thank the snowdozer. (Thanks!)

It was a brilliant day today, not a cloud in the sky. As a consequence the temperature started at -24 Celcius, rising to -18 in the course of the day. In the morning we stayed snugly inside to listen to position statements, a kind of short presentation (15 mins) meant to provoke or inspire, but unfortunately by most of the presenters today used to advertise some of their past work, in a kind of regular conference talk squeezed into a timeslot too small for it. The record was 32 slides (I personally prefer to stick to no more than 2 or 3 slides a minute).

Lake Louise, 14:30

The afternoon was reserved for our scheduled midweek excursion. After some discussion of possible alternatives the organisers had settled for a trip to Lake Louise, about one hour drive in a rented bus. Initially there was talk of skating and ice sculptures, but apparently it is too early in the season. Temperatures like today's are not common even here, at least in December. Taking the initiative (as I felt there was a surplus of fear of the weather conditions) I pointed out that there was sun, no wind and a completely level trail along the lake that those without proper shoes should have no trouble walking; but also the possibility of a longer round trip up to a smaller lake for the more adventurous - daylight permitting: sunset is at 16:35 and the schedule would have us arrive there around 14:30. Something for everyone, in other words. No worries, in yet other words. This was received positively, but as such things go I was straight away (not entirely seriously) bombarded as tour leader.

It all worked out very well. Slightly less than half of the group decided to be adventurous and go up to Mirror Lake (more a pond than a lake, really). The trail was hard-packed snow, in a very relaxed gradient, not a problem at all to walk. Arriving at our destination after some 45 minutes, the consensus was that to go for the round trip was unwise given the remaining distance and uncertain descent; instead we went up one more stage to Agnes Lake, where there was even supposed to be a tea house. This second leg got us a bit closer to the tree line, so that we could look out over the valley. We were on the northeastern side, meaning that we had very little benefit of the sun at that hour, but the valley was still sunlit and lay utterly clear at our feet.

Ice tea

No tea today! The teahouse was closed. Indeed there would have been very few customers, we met no one else on the trail. No problem really, except that it meant we could not linger very long: while moving easily kept you warm enough (no wind!) standing still for any length of time above a minute was not advisable (estimated temperature at that elevation and hour: -28 Celcius). Going down we made very good time, so that we could enjoy a hot drink in the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, another monstrosity built by the Canadian Pacific Railway, like its brother in Banff whose praises I have already sung. A Glacial Warmer for me: coffee, chocolate, brandy: it, too, made very good time going down.

P.S.

If, like me, you are wondering whether Louise was maybe the older sister of Agnes: wrong, no relation, Louise Caroline Alberta was a daughter of Queen Victoria and wife of a Canadian governor who also gave her name to the state of Alberta in which Banff lies; Susan Agnes MacDonald was the wife of a Canadian prime minister.