Day trip - The Glacier Trail

I really wanted to see more than Banff in the Rockies. My very first plan was going to Lake Louise and then to Jasper by bus and catch a train to Winnipeg there. Finally, I changed my mind to save some money and some time. So the best option to discover the Rockies was booking a tour with a tour company!

I received an other good advice which was using Discover Banff Tour. I have to admit that there are so many companies here which offer the same kind of tour in the same range of price that I was a bit hesitating. And now that it's done, I have no regret. We had a friendly and knowledgeable guide, with a charming smile, a small bus, a small group composed of 12 people and a weather which was not bad.
We'd chosen a tour called "The Glacier Trail", a full-day tour driving from Banff to Jasper National Park on the Columbia Icefields. Fortunately, we took some warm clothes because on the glacier it was a bit cold.
We saw so many breathtaking landscapes that I couldn't even say the name of the different places we've been.

 

We started the day by a short stop in Lake Louise, about 30min, just enough time to walk on the frozen lake and have a look at the Chateau Lake Louise. Such a nice place but I wish I could see it in summer, when the ice is melted, to see the blue/green water reflecting the Mount Victoria.

Then we just kept on driving on the most scenic highway in the world, stopping in some places to take some pictures, before arriving at the Columbia Icefields Centre where we ate our lunch, waiting to go to our Ice Explorer tour on the Athabasca Glacier. The trucks are amazing, apparently unique and expensive, but I'm not sure that this kind of tour will help fighting against the melting of the glacier.... Anyway, we had to deal with a snow storm and we couldn't see anything but it was great. It seemed very cold because of the wind but it was just -8°C.

After this short but unforgettable experience we just went back to the bus to go back to Banff.

It was such a good day! I do love this area. Nature, snow, mountains... what else?