Today dawned cloudy and cool and we thought it was a perfect day for hiking. We left from Lake Louise at 8:00am for the Plain of Six Glaciers. The park hiking brochure said it was about six and two-thirds miles round trip with another just less than a mile round trip further to the Abbot Pass Overlook. The brochure said the hike to the Plain of Six Glaciers was about 4 hours round trip. The park service said the trail was in good shape. They lied.

We made the hike alright, but in eight and a half hours, counting lunch and lots of picture taking. It was the highlight of the entire trip for me. You will see it in 9 posts. So let’s get started with our hike to “6G” – the Plain of Six Glaciers.

In the first photo, we are standing at the head of Lake Louise. It’s important to notice that in the background of the middle of the lake is Mount Victoria and the Victoria Glacier. The two major points of orientation for the photos from this hike will be Lake Louise and Mount Victoria. Mount Victoria is 11,364 feet high.

The next two photos were taken while we walked along the trail next to Lake Louise. The second photo was from around the middle of the lake and the third photo was taken near the end of the lake where the glacial melt, loaded with glacial flour, flowed into the lake.

I added the last photo because we saw lots of Hoary Marmots on this trip but we especially saw a lot of them on this section of this hike. They weren’t nearly as hard to find as the Pikas were. They even seemed to pose for us on occasion.