Breathtaking Banff

In December of 2021, still living through a world where the pandemic's influence was palpable - working from home, isolation after flight travel, reduced outings - I ordered a jigsaw puzzle off of Amazon to better spend the winter. Something that I had enjoyed in my childhood, it had been a while since I had done a jigsaw puzzle. With no particular image in mind, I looked up some generic "scenery" images and ordered one that seemed grand. Noticeably rusty, it took me 3 weeks to complete it. It was only once I had framed it that, on a call with someone, I got to know what place the image was of. This was Moraine Lake in Banff National Park, Canada. After realizing that the image was quite real and not an edited rendition, the eagerness to visit the spot only grew. Fast-forward to 2023, my wife and I had gotten our Canada tourist visas and the urge to visit strengthened. Social media and shorts only fueled it further by periodically showing stunning views of Banff, itinerary options of the regions and more.

1000-piece jigsaw puzzle of Moraine Lake. Credit: Tushar Joshi

Come the summer of 2024, we were quite keen to make it happen. Through screenshots of reels over time and my own notes, a date-agnostic itinerary was sitting ready. The unfortunate forest fires of Jasper National Park had been a major news in July, which ruled out visiting Jasper in the summer. With a limited set of places on the target list, a weekend trip for Banff seemed likely. The drive from Seattle to Banff is known to be very beautiful, but takes ~10 hours. Looking to fit it into a weekend, we chalked out flights to Calgary and locked in the August 24-25 weekend for this!

One quirk of visiting Moraine Lake was yet to be navigated. Cars cannot be driven to Moraine Lake - only the park shuttle or private shuttle options are available. This meant we would have to be on our toes to log in to the portal exactly 2 days prior at 7 AM Pacific time and be quick enough to snap up 2 tickets for the early morning "sunrise" shuttles - since catching the sunrise at Moraine Lake was the bucket list item based on the puzzle's scenery. Online posts had shared that sometimes the slots will appear up to 30-40 minutes past 7 AM. Armed with this information, I was able to get the preferred 5 AM shuttle for Sunday after a few retries and refreshes.

Our journey from Seattle to Calgary had an interesting delay. Due to some system issues being faced by WestJet, the airline we were flying, none of the usually automated or computer-assisted processes were working. Boarding passes were written out by hand, passport details were manually entered into a spreadsheet's print, and bag tags were also labeled by hand - all things that we've gotten so used to happening quickly. The airline staff tried their best to keep the queue moving and process folks. After 2 hours in the baggage check-in stage (what usually takes under 15 minutes) we got past security to the boarding gate. Unsurprisingly, the same 2 gate agents who checked us in were present to manually validate passenger identification and boarding pass before boarding. This time, we took the alternate option of being seated in the gate area and catching a nap until the queue was almost done before proceeding to board. Another 2 hours had passed, and it was nearly 11 AM when the flight departed.

Despite the unusual circumstances and significant delay, we were amazed to see how calm and quiet all the passengers were - nobody had created a ruckus or argued with any airline staff! It was almost as if everyone was on a relaxed vacation and had simply accepted the situation. Through the flight, we pondered over it and in hindsight felt that it was a great example of a human nature that is commonly taught in User Interface Design - show the user that progress is happening to earn trust and keep the user's attention. In the past, we'd seen how people reacted to even shorter flight delays of 30 minutes to an hour (discontentment, some howling, some arguing with staff). The difference was that in those cases the issue was a black box - we were just told of flight delays due to technical issues without anything apparent. However, here, all the passengers could see the slow, albeit consistent, processing being done by the airline staff and their efforts were there for all to see. It was akin to see a loading spinner or progress bar on a webpage when some background steps are being run.

Something on our planned itinerary had to give way due to the delay, and it was the Takkakaw Falls hike in Yoho National Park. Yoho is one of the 3 national parks in close vicinity that most folks do as a combined trip - Banff and Jasper being the other two. Just as daylight began to fade, we drove into Yoho and visited the Natural Bridge spot. This was a formation on the Kicking Horse River - the powerful flow of water had carved through the rock creating a cavity underneath for the water to flow below while the rock on top remained solid. It was a picturesque setting and the dusk lighting made it even more scenic.

Later that night, we camped in our car at the Banff Tunnel Mountain village 1 campground. Our past experiences of car camping in Utah greatly helped us efficiently set up our air bed in the car.  The unknowns were few and it felt like a familiar experience. Learning from the previous time, we had carried extra blankets to keep warm through the night as the temperature was to dip until 5 degrees C. The campground was nearly fully occupied, so wildlife interaction seemed like a long shot. However, since we had to wake up at 3 AM next morning, we still had to be careful.

On Sunday morning, we made our way to Louise Lakeshore parking lot. We were glad to have carried ample warm clothes as the early morning air was quite chilly. Once on the highway, we could see a stream of cars headed in the same direction as we were - this confirmed that we would have company at Moraine Lake. Up at the parking lot that was an hour's drive from the campground, we paid the mandatory $35 parking fees before boarding the shuttle. The "Rockpile" viewpoint at Moraine Lake was already beginning to crowd, so we hiked up the hill from the rear and then descended to find a good spot with an unobstructed view of the lake.

All this while, we could faintly spot the outline of the mountains and the lake in front of us. As sunrise approached, it was like a grand painting being revealed! The setting of the lake constantly reminded me of watching something in a stadium - the rock pile allowed us to have stadium-like seating where each person had a clear view of the attraction. The tall mountains surrounding the lake provided a large backdrop for the stunning blue colors of the lake to take center stage. There was prediction of some cloud cover that morning but to our surprise the light fog and cloud cover present in the beginning dispersed by sunrise. We could sit and admire the transition of the view from night to light. As the first rays of sun hit the tops of the mountains and cast their golden glow, the picture from our puzzle, which we had seen every day at home for the past couple of years, now materialized for real in front of our eyes. It was a grand moment visually, but a completely serene moment audibly.

Sunrise at Moraine Lake - August 2024. Credit: Tushar Joshi

For most other places we have visited in the recent past, we had encountered two types. For one, we hadn't heard much about the place so the grandeur was a surprise. On the other hand, we'd heard so much hype and praise of the place that the grandeur seemed a pale shadow - either the attraction was much smaller (e.g. Mesa Arch, Utah), or we were in unfavorable lighting conditions (e.g. Grand Prismatic spring, Yellowstone). However, for Moraine Lake, it surpassed the expectations we had from the images. It was truly a memorable view that is now firmly imprinted in our minds!

After soaking in the scenery and capturing some in photos, we made our way back to Lake Louise. Contrary to Moraine Lake, we weren't so lucky with the lighting here and found the view to be slightly underwhelming. Nevertheless, the crowds were sparse early in the day and we could enjoy a peaceful walk around a part of the perimeter. The trail was hugging the lake's edge and the proximity to the water was also something unlike many other lakes we'd seen.

We made our way back to Seattle with a memory for a lifetime. It was a major bucket list item we'd been able to check off. The quick 2-day trip gave us multiple breathtaking views and Moraine Lake was just the crown jewel to top it all off!