Day 8: Lake Agnes Tea House

This is Mike at the helm again. Erin and I decided this morning to stay an extra day at Lake Louise. Erin's left Achille's started bothering her yesterday and my right knee has been so-so. Thus, taking some time off the bike seemed wise. The Paradise Bungalows where we stayed last night (seen above with Erin) also had a different cabin available for us, so it was an even easier decision. Plus, we knew we wanted to start the day with a hike to one of the famous tea houses in the mountains overlooking Lake Louise (that are only accessible by foot or horseback). Not having to bike after that seemed appealing as well. 

Knowing that we wanted to take today a bit easy, we opted to hike to the Lake Agnes Tea House which seemed seemed a reasonable 3.7km away (plus 1 km uphill from our cabin to get to the trailhead). Missing from the route description, however, was the vertical climb of roughly 1000ft to get to the Tea House (altho Erin just read a moment ago that the Lake Agnes Tea House is the highest tea house in all of Canada, so there you go). Thus, our hike was more challenging than anticipated, but there were occasional vistas of Lake Louise along the way which definitely inspired. 

The reward for our climb was an amazing tea house serving a small array of homemade foods and 75 varieties of loose leaf tea. Seventy-five! Plus, the tea house was set next to a lake (where the servers would go to fetch the water to boil for the tea as seen in the below picture) with a cascading waterfall nearby. It was pretty much perfect. 

Erin is seated at the far right. 

The tougher than expected hike did take its toll on one young boy who unfortunately cut his leg along the way and had to be airlifted out via helicopter while we were there. I am hoping that he only needed some stitches and was more scared by the sight of his blood than anything.

Did I mention how high we were? There was snow nearby. I got Erin to take the next photo by promising her that the snowball I threw in her direction would not hit her. :)

Finally, back at the start of our hike (near the fancy Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise), we took a couple of pictures of the beautiful flowers on the grounds.  The yellow and orange ones are Icelandic poppies while I don't know what the purple ones are. 

Oh, and last but not least, I biked down from our mountain abode post-hike to visit the local bike shop in Lake Louise. The bearings in my left pedal had become problematic shortly after we left Jasper, and while I *think* the pedal would have held up for the duration of the trip, I thought it best not to chance it. It seems like this was a good decision as the bike mechanic immediately diagnosed the pedal as irrepairable. Fortunately, the shop carried the exact same kind of pedals on my bike (which allow one to clip in with bike shoes on one side but have a platform pedal on the other side which allows one to ride with sneakers), and they weren't too expensive to replace.  Thus, the Surly is rolling smoothly once again!