Moraine Lake

Obviously, if you're willing to hike farther, there are some incredible viewpoints above Lake Louise.

And then there's Moraine Lake and the rock pile.

Now, the rock pile, you do have to walk up it.

There are a lot of stairs.

It's not what I would consider a hike.

It's mostly stairs to the top of the viewpoint, but the view is incredible.

You know, looking across Moraine Lake, the 10 peaks, it is that iconic Moraine Lake view.

If you are physically capable of getting up those stairs, I would absolutely do it.

Then towards the end, I'll talk about a few options if you do wanna see larches but still don't want a huge hiking day.

And if you do want the bigger larch hikes around Lake Louise, Moraine Lake, go back and listen to episode 26.

I already have a full episode on larch season and the best places to hike for them.

Today is more for the person saying, "I wanna see fall colors, but I don't necessarily want to hike 10 kilometers to do it." If what you really want is that classic fall color with, you know, golden leaves, I would start in Kananaskis.

So even the drive gives you a really nice transition from, you know, those leafy trees into that classic higher elevation fall scenery.

And once you get up to Highwood Pass, you have one of my favorite easier larch options.

Ptarmigan Cirque is probably one of the first hikes I would suggest to someone who says, "I wanna see larches, but I don't wanna do a huge hike." Compared with some of the bigger larch hikes around Lake Louise and Moraine Lake, this is a much easier option.

Now, my caution here is that because it's easy, you can expect it to be incredibly busy, so plan to go early.

This is something that comes up all the time when people are planning their trip.

What time should I go to Lake Louise? How early do I need to get to Johnston Canyon? Will Emerald Lake be quieter later in the day? Do I need to get up for sunrise at Moraine Lake? And once you start researching Banff, it can honestly start to sound like every single place needs to be visited before breakfast, which obviously is not gonna work.

[laughs] You only get one morning each day.

So I wanna help you think about this a little bit differently, not necessarily what is the one perfect time to visit every place, but more which places are actually worth prioritizing that early morning, when can you go later, and what are the places that you should just accept that there may be crowds and do what you can there to get away from the crowds? Now before we get into it, if you're planning a Banff or Jasper trip for 2027 or beyond, this is exactly the kind of help I like to give inside my Banff and Jasper travel planning hub.

Banff is popular.

Lake Louise is popular.

Moraine Lake, Johnston Canyon, Emerald Lake, those places are all popular.

It doesn't matter what people tell you on social media that, you know, everybody goes to Banff, but nobody visits Yoho National Park.

There is Lake Louise itself, which is only about a 10 minute drive from the campground.

And then there is Moraine Lake.

And it gets a little confusing because it's Lake Louise, but then Moraine Lake.

But those are the two biggies and definitely want to see both of those if you can.

There are, as usual in this region, some logistics and planning that you need to worry about.

You cannot drive a private car anymore as of a couple of years ago to Moraine Lake.

You only can take a shuttle bus there.

And the problem is that the Parks Canada shuttle is very hard to book.

It's just a beautiful shot.

So why are we bringing this up? We're bringing this up because when Uncle Kyle sent us the trip itinerary in May, we're looking up all the spots he sent us and we come across Lake Moraine.

We're like, wow, Lake Moraine.

That is literally the lake hanging in our dining room.

That is so crazy.

You may have seen some of our content socialites.

For sure.

Like people travel around the world to see Lake Louise and Lake Moraine.

All right, time to head west.

Lake Louise and Moraine Lake, the two places that almost everyone has on their Banff wish list.

First, Lake Louise.

You're going to already know about this one, but it needs to be on this list.

And of course, leaving some of that huge concentration of people behind is really important.

This is one of the easiest ways to make your visit to Lake Louise feel like you actually spent some time there instead of just taking your picture and getting back in your shuttle.

Now at Moraine Lake, you're probably well aware you have the famous rock pile viewpoint, obviously, which is a large set of stairs to climb, but there's also a lake shore trail.

If you do the full Moraine Lake Lakeshore Trail to the end and back, it's roughly three kilometers return, very little elevation gain.