Day 18 - Plain of the Six Glaciers Teahouse Trail, via Lake Agnes and the Beehive

There was a thick fog when we woke up this morning, for a moment I thought maybe it would mean today’s hike would be cancelled, but no such luck, we could see blue sky above and knew the fog would probably burn off. By the time we had got dressed and eaten our usual buffet breakfast (served by the lovely Dayna today) that had happened.  

We went back to the room and got ready as quickly as possible because today’s hike started from Lake Louise and everyone keeps going on about getting an early start to avoid the hordes of tourists. It was already getting pretty hot by the time the resort shuttle bus dropped us off at our car and by the time we made it to Lake Louise it was scorching in the sun - good job we’d P20’d.

After a quick toilet break (where the men were queueing and the women weren’t - weird eh?) we got to the lake which was pretty impressive, so long as you stood with your back to the horrific huge ten story hotel on the shore. (I still prefer our little Emerald Lake though!) There were quite a few people there already but it wasn’t completely overrun or anything, still we made a move away from the crowd and onto the trail. 

The trail gradually rose from Lake Louise until we reached Mirror Lake which reflected the Beehive which we would eventually reach the summit of. 

We had a little break and a banana, watched the chipmunk things and then carried on up the hill to eventually arrive at Lake Agnes and Teahouse Number 1. The lake was awesome and the teahouse was nice but we didn’t bother to order anything as it looked pretty busy, so we sat on a rock for another short break before heading off again! 

Lake Agnes Teahouse

Lake Agnes

The hike took us around the lake and up to the Beehive summit, this was probably the hardest part of the day, it was a pretty grueling series of switchbacks but finally we made it up to the summit which was at 2284 metres. 

There was a short detour to a look out point which we thought would be quite nice, it turned out to be pretty amazing, so we sat for a while, looking out over the Banff National Park while we had a snack. The canoes on the lake looked like little ants, it was pretty cool. 

Beehive lookout

Lake Louise from The Beehive

Nice place to stop for a break

Canoes look like ants from here

On the way back to the trail we got talking to a girl who turned out to be called Martina, she was from Switzerland. She decided to join us for the rest of the day and once again we shared stories about our countries and our travels. 

For a while the hike became much easier as we went downhill, but we had to start going up again after a bit to reach the second teahouse; the historic Plain of the Six Glaciers Teahouse, built in 1924. This one definitely looked older than Lake Agnes Teahouse and looked super cute with its bunting. We saw a table up on the first floor and despite already having lunch we decided to go and get some cake as a few people had mentioned it, and what’s the point in hiking all that way not to experience it properly. The cake was yummy, it didn’t last long. 

Plain of the Six Glaciers Teahouse

We paid up and made another detour, or trail extension up to see Victoria Glacier and get a view of Abbot Pass - actually this was probably the most difficult part of the hike, it was very steep and was all scree, but it was worth it to get a close up view of the glacier and the little hut at the top of it. During the earlier part of the hike we kept hearing a loud crashing thud noise, a bit like thunder, but as there wasn’t a cloud in the sky we worked out that it had to be an avalanche or something (Natalie: it was probably chunks of ice falling off the high glaciers), we were hoping to see some of the ice fall off, but wanted it to be far enough away not to kill us! Alas, nothing happened while we were up there, but it was still pretty cool. 

Making our way back down the scree was difficult but we managed it. I filled up all of the empty water bottles from a glacial stream, oooh it was fresh and lovely. We had a Life Straw which would filter the water but we thought glacial water was surely safe to drink. It tastes safe. We haven’t died yet. 

Walking down the rest of the way was pretty uneventful, it didn’t take too long, it was nice and easy on the legs. In total the hike took us 7 and a half hours and turned out to be 22k rather than the expected 18k. We dropped Martina off at her hostel in Lake Lake Village and made our way back to Emerald Lake where we decided to go straight to the hot tubs - even Natalie didn’t bother jumping in the lake as it was starting to get a bit late. 

As usual, we got ready for dinner and headed to our local - the Kicking Horse Lounge where Dayna was our waitress again (wow, that’s a long day for her), she remembered us from this morning and asked how our hike had gone - we felt like proper locals and thought how nice it is to stay in a place long enough to get to know the staff. Throughout dinner we had a good laugh with Dayna, it made our last night here really memorable. We even filled in a comment card for her, saying that the only recommendation we have for the resort is to ‘clone Dayna’, I told her if she didn’t get a promotion from our feedback the world had gone mad! A few minutes later she popped back over to say thank you for the nicest comment card she’s ever received. 

We enjoyed chilling out in the lounge area, writing our last post from Emerald Lake, feeling quite sad that we would be leaving this incredible place and lovely people in the morning.