Day 6 Part 1: Canadian Rockies: Banff to Lake Louise to Ice Fields

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Today's Itinerary: Leaving Banff for Lake Louise, and arriving at the Columbian Ice Fields, about half way between Banff and Jasper.

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Looking for wildlife, we headed up the Ski Norquay access road thinking we might get a nice morning view of the bighorn sheep we'd seen the prior day.  No such luck.  But we see that it had snowed at higher elevations during the night

Town of Banff, below

Mount Norquay

After breakfast back at Best Western, we packed up the car with our gear and headed up to Sulphur Mountain to catch the Banff Gondola.  The weather cleared beautifully for us.

Town of Banff and the Bow River

Gondola terminal and restaurant

It was now time to head toward Lake Louise and then to the Columbian Ice Fields.  It was nearly noon as we left Banff, but we decided to take a quick trip up the Ski Norquay access road one more time, with a few stops along Canada Route 1 for some panorama shots of the mountains.

We did see a few bighorn sheep, and we caught sight of a lone black bear on our way down the access road.