Today we will do the tour that we were supposed to have done yesterday but in the other direction. We leave around 7am and drive to Canmore in the Bow Valley Wildland Provincial Park. There we ask a ‘local’ where we can have a good breakfast. The man, from Indian origin, tells Patrick ‘over there’ is a good place called Franchezua or something… Patrick asks again the name of this place but again he does not understand the Indian so we go and look for it. We drive through the street indicated by the Indian and suddenly Nathalie yells “I found it! There! Chez François’! And yes, we had a very nice traditional breakfast with pancakes and Maple syrup... The food was so good that we decide to return here for dinner. We leave Canmore and drive to Spray Valley Provincial Park and Peter Lougheed Provincial Park. To keep it short… it was breathtaking! We take our time to shoot lots of pictures of the mountaintops reflecting in the water. At Upper Kananaskis Lake there was still snow but once we looked at it closely these were long ice-crystals of about 15 cm long, nicely sticking to each other. It is ice from the glacier and we never saw this before. Through the Kananaskis Hwy 40 we arrive at the TC1 (Trans Canadian Highway) which we will follow till Banff. There we first go to the Alamo office to change our GPS. That goes very well and the serial numbers are changed on our documents and faxed to the main office so we would not have any problems when returning the GPS. We leave Banff and pass the Vermilion Lakes where we take the exit to the Hwy 1A, the Bow Valley Parkway to Johnston Canyon. Once we arrive it is a long walk next to this beautiful canyon with its small waterfalls. We walk approximately 1 km to the Lower Falls and want to return to our car but Patrick wants to see the Upper Falls and walks to them. We then continue our trip towards Lake Louise. Nathalie and LuSo have already been here and remember that it is beautiful and they were right! Once we arrive we make some nice pictures and go for a short walk. Afterwards we drive back and take the exit to Lake Moraine. The lake is half frozen and we walk on glacier ice. Nice, very nice. We slowly get hungry and decide to take the TC1 to Canmore. They welcome us again at Chez François. The three of us take a 8oz steak and Sofie a mixed grill. Again we enjoy the food and remember ‘the Grizzly House’. After dinner we go back to the lodge, as tomorrow we will have a long drive.

Daytrip approx. 406 km