It just doesn't seem possible that places like Lake Louise can really exist.  When you think of a mountain lake, with bright blue glacial water, you are thinking of Lake Louise. 

The brochures say that Lake Louise is the biggest natural lake in the Canadian Rockies.  Still, it's not really all that big.  The only trail along the lakeshore runs along the north side of the lake, and it only takes maybe half an hour to make it from the moraine to the alluvial fan.

The west end of the lake is an alluvial fan, where silt is being deposited from the stream that runs into the lake.  Gradually the lake is filling with silt and rock flour-- someday Lake Louise will be gone.

This is a view of Lake Louise from a couple of miles away and about half way up a mountain.  It just looks like a little blue gem.

This picture was taken from the top of the Lake Louise Gondola.  This mountain is a ski resort in the winter.  In the summer, you can ride the gondola to this height and then walk to a "wildlife center" where you can watch videos and learn about bears...

...and it's a good place to learn about bears.  Bears like avalanche zones because avalanches wipe out the trees, giving bushes with tasty berries a chance to grow.  Well, to a bear, a ski run (during the off season) looks like an avalanche run, so bears congregate at the ski resort, looking for berries.  There is a system of electric fences at the sky resorts to control the bears.  To be honest, Kimberly and I never figured out, however, whether the top of the gondola was on the "bear" or the "people" side of the fence.

True story:   I kept seeing signs that said "bears" on the left side and "ours" on the right side.  I wondered how the bears knew which side belonged to the bears and which side was "ours".  Then I figured out that "ours" is French for "bears".  Now I get it.