Exploring the Village of Lake Louise (Rocky Mountain Trip Part 4)

This is my fourth post containing photos from my trip through parts of North America's Rocky Mountains.  You can read my previous posts with photos of Glacier National Park, the Cowboy Trail, and Lake Louise (the lake).

I had so many photos of Lake Louise (the lake) that I decided to give it its own post. In this post, I will focus on everything else the village of Lake Louise, located in Banff National Park, has to offer.

The Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise offers many great opportunities to take photos.  Most of the iconic photos you'll see of the hotel include the lake in it, but there are a number of other vantage points for photos that don't include the lake, such as those above and below.

Moraine Lake is not actually in the village of Lake Louise, but it's a quick drive.  Moraine Lake is the sight I was most looking forward to photographing while in Banff, so a sunrise visit was a must.  I just missed the sunrise by a couple of minutes, but when I arrived, a beautiful double rainbow was forming over the lake.  I'll call that a fair trade off.



I know I wanted to come away with more than one photo, so I zoomed in and took in some different photo lengths.  When I brought the photos into Lightroom, I tried some different treatments on each photo so they all wouldn't look the same.





Walking back down to the parking lot from Moraine Lake, the view was really pretty looking every direction.

The light had already changed and the rainbow had disappeared by the time I took this photo.  At first, I was disappointed that there was a person in the photo (even though I could easily clone him out), but then I decided I really liked it.

The weather started to turn overcast as the clouds swept through.

For a change of scenery, let's look at my photos of the Fairmont.  Above and below is the Victoria Ballroom, with beautiful Swiss-style designs on the beams.

The sunroom is pictured above.

The outdoor grounds of the hotel are just as beautiful as the inside.

The Heritage Hall, which celebrates the history of Banff National Park, has beautiful stained glass windows.

This beautiful lounge just above the lobby is just for guests of the hotel.   Given that the Fairmont sees hundreds if not thousands of day visitors, the guests-only lounge is a nice touch for those who would like a nice quiet place to relax outside of the hotel room.

Going beyond the grounds of the Fairmont, the Lake Louise Ski Resort is worth a visit, even in summer.  Their gondola offers beautiful views of Lake Louise and, if you're lucky, grizzly bears.

The view going up!  The open chairlift option is a must-do for photos, in my opinion.


Once we got to the top, there was a female grizzly in plain view in the fields down the mountain a bit.  Luckily there was a fence separating the humans from the bear.





The view going down of the mountains and Lake Louise is just beautiful.



Back at the Fairmont, some photos of the lobby.  At night when all the visitors were gone proved to be a better time to photograph it.  The above lobby was built for the 1988 Calgary Olympics, and the below area was the original lobby.



Although I shared a few photos I took while canoeing on Lake Louise in my last post, but I wanted to share a couple more where the Fairmont features more prominently.

Another rainbow spotted!

At the Lakeview Lounge, guests and visitors can enjoy a drink or an appetizer while looking out at beautiful Lake Louise.

Walking around the grounds of the Fairmont on the last morning before heading down to Banff to complete the trip, the sun was shining and everything looked beautiful.

Don't forget to mail a postcard through the elevator chute!