Important Things You Need To Know Before Visiting Lake Louise In Summer
Lake Louise is one of the most idyllic locations in Banff National Park, and has become a haven for tourists looking to sample some of Canada’s astounding natural beauty.
We have written this guide to help you plan the perfect Lake Louise summer itinerary, so you can enjoy the destination as much as we did.
It is important that you learn some crucial things before you arrive in Lake Louise, so that you can get the most from your stay there.
Whether you are planning on visiting Lake Louise for a day, a weekend or a week, this guide is going to make your visit to Lake Louise as stress-free as possible.
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Summer in Lake Louise at a Glance
Highlights: Canoeing on Lake Louise; Hiking to Devil’s Thumb; Lake Louise Gondola Ride
Best Luxury Place to stay: Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise
Best Affordable Place to stay: Lake Louise Inn
Easiest way to visit Lake Louise: rent a car through Rentalcars.com or take the 8X bus from Banff.
Unmissable Lake Louise Summer Experience: Lake Louise and Icefields Parkway Day Tour
Lake Louise is a Lake, Village and Ski Hill
One of the first things you need to know about Lake Louise, is that the name ‘Lake Louise’ refers to 3 different things. It’s important to know this before visiting because you don’t want to accidentally end up in the wrong place.
Firstly, it refers to the actual lake itself, the one you have seen all the photographs of. The Lake was given its name in the late 1800s and it derives from the 4th daughter of Queen Victoria, Princess Louise.
Lake Louise is also the name of the nearest village and settlement to the famous Lake. Located just off the Trans-Canada Highway (Highway 1), Lake Louise village is a modestly sized community with a limited number of shops and hotels.
Lake Louise Ski Resort - Summer Gondola
Most notably, Lake Louise village is home to the Samson Mall which houses coffee shops, a liquor store, a small convenience store and a few gift/souvenir shops.
The final place that has been given the name ‘Lake Louise’ is the Lake Louise Ski Hill. Located a few kilometres away from Lake Louise village, Lake Louise Ski Resort has over 4200 acres of accessible ski terrain and is one of North America’s signature ski resorts.
In the summer, the Lake Louise Ski Resort is home to the Lake Louise Summer Gondola Ride, one of the best summer activities in Lake Louise.
When visiting Lake Louise, be sure to double check your directions so that you know will be arriving in the area of Lake Louise that you intended on visiting.
Lake Louise Sunrise Canoe
Lake Louise is in Banff National Park
In 1883, while working for the Canadian Pacific Railway, workers stumbled upon a thermal hot spring bubbling out of the ground just outside of Banff. Ownership of this hot spring quickly caused conflict, leading the Canadian government to declare Banff as the first National Park in Canada.
Nearly 140 years later, Banff National Park continues to attract mass crowds year on year. Undeniably, the highlight of Banff National Park is Lake Louise, and there are a few things you need to know about the national park system before visiting Lake Louise.
Firstly, you need to purchase a Canada Parks Pass if you are visiting Lake Louise by car. You can either purchase them online before you visit, or alternatively, you are able to pick them up at the National Park boundary as you enter Banff National Park.
In Samson Mall, the small shopping centre in Lake Louise village, you will find the Lake Louise Visitor Information Centre. Park passes are also available for collection from here, with the price beginning from CAD$10 per day, per adult.
Secondly, all garbage bins in Lake Louise are “bear-proof” because they are located in a national park. You may be asking yourself, why do I need to know this before visiting Lake Louise? Quite simply, while living in Lake Louise, it is remarkable how many people we saw attempting to open a bin, thinking they were locked, and throwing their garbage on the floor.
We have a responsibility as visitors to the National Park to protect the area and clean up after ourselves, and it is therefore important to educate yourself with something as simple as how a garbage bin functions.
Lake Louise from Little Beehive Lookout
You cannot fly drones in Lake Louise
It is appropriate for us to highlight this point before you arrive in Lake Louise as this is something that is not very well known.
The reason that drones are prohibited in Banff National Park is because they disturb wildlife, and as a national park serves to protect wildlife, drones are therefore banned.
There are signs on many of the hiking trails in Lake Louise that state the use of drones is prohibited, but people tend to miss these.
Any drone footage you will have seen on the internet of Lake Louise will have either been filmed by an individual with special permission from Parks Canada, or by somebody that illegally filmed Lake Louise.
The fine for filming using a drone in Lake Louise can be up to CAD$10,000, so it certainly isn’t worth it. Besides, the restrictions are in place to protect the wildlife and that should be your first priority, rather than not getting fined.
Working at the Lake Louise Boathouse, we were Banff National Park Ambassadors and as such, we passionately reminded visitors that the use of drone photography was illegal at Lake Louise. After all, we want to protect the wildlife in Lake Louise so visitors can continue to enjoy wildlife for generations to come.
Lake Louise Boathouse at sun rise
Lake Louise has a rich Swiss Heritage
When tourists began to uncover the secrets of Lake Louise in the late 1800s and early 1900s, advances in adventure-tourism were beginning to take shape.
As a result, a number of wealthy businessmen would flock to Lake Louise, book themselves in for several months at a time at the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, and seek to conquer a number of mountain peaks in the area.
Unfortunately, this came at a fatal cost. In 1896, Phillip Abbot became the first recorded mountaineering fatality in North America after attempting to scale Mount Lefroy in Lake Louise.
After this, it was clear that Banff National Park, and Lake Louise in particular, needed a number of mountaineering professionals to guide and educate the growing number of tourists wanting to scale mountains in the area.
The Swiss were drafted in as they were seen as world-leading mountaineering pioneers thanks to their escapades in the Swiss Alps. Nowadays, this heavily Swiss influence is still evident in Lake Louise.
Walliser Stube’s signature Swiss cheese Fondue
The decor throughout the Chateau Lake Louise pays homage to the Swiss influence that was paramount to the early development of the Lake Louise area. Most notably, the Walliser Stube offers a luxury, alpine-inspired menu featuring the signature Swiss Cheese Fondue.
Similarly, located between the Lake Louise parking lot and the Lake Louise boathouse, you will find the Swiss Guides Cabin. As the name suggests, this is where the guides would reside while leading groups of eager adventurers.
Learning about the Swiss heritage of Lake Louise is something important to know before you visit the famous shores, so that you can appreciate the history of the area once you arrive.
Lake Louise gets it signature colour from the Glacial Rock Flour
Before visiting Lake Louise, it is difficult to comprehend how blue the water really is. It’s impossible to know whether the photos you have seen have been filtered or edited, or whether the water will be underwhelming in real life. Trust us, it won’t be.
The scantily-believable turquoise water gets its definitive colour thanks to the mighty Victoria Glacier that towers over the lake.
As the ice melts, rock flour from the glacier is carried with the water into the lake below. As the sun hits the lake, the rock flour is able to reflect the sun rays and as a result, to human eyes at least, the lake appears to be the vivid blue colour that we are all so familiar with.
It is definitely worth knowing this before you visit Lake Louise, so you can spend more time admiring the colour of the lake, rather than frantically googling why it looks so blue.
Note: Lake Louise is clearer at the beginning of the summer as the rock flour and sediment has had less time to disperse. As the summer progresses, the water becomes gradually more milky or cloudy in appearance as more of the glacial ice melts, bringing greater amounts of rock flour into Lake Louise.
Lake Louise
There are a number of hiking trails in Lake Louise
Before visiting Lake Louise, you will be forgiven for thinking that the main walk in the area is the Lakeshore trail - the one that takes you on a simple out-and-back trail to the back of the lake. In reality though, there are an abundance of hikes and walks in Lake Louise.
One of the hiking trails that really stands out to us is the Lake Agnes Teahouse Trail. Again it is a simple out-and-back style trail, but this time you are taken through the trees until you reach Lake Agnes.
Lake Agnes is a modestly sized lake nestled in the mountains above Lake Louise. Its signature feature is its resident teahouse - a charming, log-cabin that serves a range of over 100 different types of tea, perfect for the weary hikers that have successfully reached the teahouse.
Lake Agnes on the way up to Devil’s Thumb
For those that are feeling even more adventurous, Lake Agnes serves as the beginning for a more enterprising hike: Devil’s Thumb.
The Devil’s Thumb hike is initially made up of a series of steep, twisting switchbacks, before moving into a flatter, meadow section. The final section involves a number of challenging ascents before you reach Devil’s Thumb itself.
From the lookout point, you are treated to spectacular views of both Lake Louise and Lake Agnes. Lake Agnes, a deep shade of blue, sits to your left while Lake Louise, and its famous turquoise hue, sits to your right.
Before arriving in Lake Louise, it is a good idea to try and plan ahead for which hikes and walks you want to prioritize during your stay. You don’t want to be disappointed at the end of your trip that you didn’t factor in enough time to complete all the trails you wanted.
Lake Agnes (Teahouse in the distance)
The summer can be very busy in Lake Louise
As Lake Louise is one of the best places to visit in the Canadian Rockies, it is natural to expect a large crowd when you visit. At times, the number of visitors to Lake Louise can be overwhelming.
In the height of summer, an estimated 15000 people visit the famous shores each and every day. Over the course of an entire year, it has been predicted that 3.6 million people take a trip to Lake Louise. As you can imagine, this means it can get very busy.
We recommended that you make your way to the Lake Louise parking lot before 9am, to guarantee yourself a parking spot. On the busier weekends, arriving before 8am is advisable.
The Lake itself is only accessible via one road that goes straight from Lake Louise village up to the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise. This means that when traffic becomes very heavy, the local workers have no option other than to close the road up to the lake. In this scenario, walking from Lake Louise village up to Lake Louise is your only option.
Another factor to consider during the busier months is the number of visitors that want to rent a canoe. Canoeing on Lake Louise has become a bucket-list activity for travellers from around the globe and as such, the demand for rentals is incredibly high. In the peak summer weekends, the line for a canoe rental can often exceed 3 hours.
Knowing that Lake Louise will be busy before you arrive will help you plan your trip accordingly and hopefully help to avoid the crowds.
Tips for avoiding the crowds: the very beginning of the summer (early June) and end of summer (September) are the quietest times to visit Lake Louise, while Tuesday-Thursday also offers the best chance of avoiding too many people.
Devil’s Thumb; Lake Agnes (Left) and Lake Louise (Right)
There aren’t many shopping outlets in Lake Louise
We briefly mentioned this earlier, but it is certainly something you should be aware of before you visit Lake Louise.
In the village of Lake Louise, other than 2 gas stations, Samson Mall is the only place where you can stop to grab amenities. Although the mall only boasts one small supermarket, it is big enough to grab the essentials - though quite expensive.
If you are looking for a larger shop, perhaps you are self-catered in one of the many hotels in Lake Louise, then your best option is to purchase groceries and other items in the town of Banff, a 40-minute drive from Lake Louise.
In Banff you will find a number of shopping outlets, including a large IGA supermarket that will stock everything you will need during your stay.
Unfortunately once you pass Lake Louise village and head up to the lake itself, there are no longer any shops. Other than a few boutique stores inside the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, you will not find anywhere to buy anything.
It is definitely something to bear in mind and consider before arriving in Lake Louise - you don’t want to be caught out without any of your essentials and have to make an impromptu 2-hour round-trip to Banff just to pick up a few items.
Town of Banff
We hope this guide has taught you a few things you need to know before visiting Lake Louise in the summer. A Lake Louise summer itinerary is not complete without knowing all of these handy little tips beforehand.
Whether you are planning to visit Lake Louise this summer for a day, a weekend, or a full week, we hope this guide has made you as prepared as possible to explore our favourite destination in the Canadian Rockies.
