Skate and Sleigh on Alberta's Frozen Lake Louise

Skating on a frozen lake can be an enjoyable experience.

But skating on frozen Lake Louise in Alberta's majestic Rocky Mountains is even better. With the incredible backdrop of Mount Fairview, Mount Whyte, and the Victoria Glacier surrounding you, gliding across the exceptionally blue ice is an unforgettable adventure.

Combine your skating activity with a sleigh ride around the snow-covered banks of Lake Louise, and you have created a perfect scenic winter day in the mountains. This is exactly what we did in January of 2018 when I took my husband and kids to Banff National Park as a Christmas-gift-experience. If an outdoors adventure of this nature appeals to you, then read on for more details on how you can organize your own winter getaway!

On the road to Lake Louise in Banff National Park, Alberta.

I had planned this little excursion well in advance, seeing that it was a Christmas gift to Joey and I didn't want anything to go wrong. I made sure our hotels, activities, and even dinner reservations were made months beforehand, because Banff National Park can get pretty busy during the winter season.

I booked our Lake Louise sleigh ride through Brewster Adventures, which is a tour company operating all over Alberta, not just in Lake Louise. However, they do have a kiosk at the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise hotel, and I was put into contact with a lovely woman named Lacey who helped me plan my day trip to the Lake Louise area.

The Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise is the signature landmark of Lake Louise.

I told Lacey that I wanted to skate and sleigh at Lake Louise all in the same day, so that we wouldn't have to keep driving back and forth from our Banff hotel (read about that amazing stay here). She recommended the sleigh ride first, followed by the skating. From her experience, if you happened to get tired and sweaty from skating hard on the lake, you would later freeze during your sleigh ride. 

It made perfect sense, so we booked the sleigh ride for 2:00 p.m., which gave us plenty of time to get to Lake Louise from Banff, and plenty of time afterwards to enjoy skating and exploring the lake area.

I've always wanted to skate on this beautiful lake!

What Lacey forgot to mention to me during our series of phone calls and emails was that the weekend I had selected to visit Lake Louise was also their 'Lake Louise Ice Magic Festival'. Had I known, I still would have gone (it was actually pretty cool that the festival happened to fall on the weekend I had chosen), but I would have planned things oh-so-differently.

We arrived in Lake Louise around 1:20 p.m., knowing we were expected to check in for our sleigh ride 20 minutes in advance to the actual departure time. We were stunned when we entered the village of Lake Louise and couldn't even get past the first stop sign. The streets were packed with vehicles, and volunteers wearing safety vests were directing drivers to packed parking lots. There was no possible way to drive up to the Chateau and the lake in your own transportation.

My son and husband enjoy the sleigh ride along the banks of the lake.

Always calm and collected, my husband maneuvered our truck into a parking spot, and talked me down from my panic. ("Why didn't the lady tell me it would be this busy?" "If we have to take a bus up to the Chateau, how are we going to take the sled so the kids can skate with us?" "We are NEVER going to make it up there 20 minutes before our sleigh ride!") Thank goodness I married someone who is a little more collected than I am.

(His answers to my fretting? "She probably thought you were planning on attending the Ice Festival, and thought you already knew." "The kids can skate on their own, or we can carry them if they get tired. They don't need the sled." "If we miss our sleigh ride, I'm sure they'll put us on the next one." He was right on all three counts.)

As a family, we speed-walked over to the bus loading area and were met with a line-up of over 100 people. I despaired. But it moved quite fast and efficiently, and soon we were driving up the winding road to the Chateau and our destination.

Despite the Ice Magic Festivals large crowds, we made it to our sleigh ride on time!

When the bus parked, I rushed out of the doors and literally ran to the Brewsters desk in the hotel to make sure we hadn't forfeited our spot on the sleigh ride. Joey and the kids hustled as best they could to meet up with me outside of the hotel. I arrived at the sleigh one minute before 2:00, checked my family in and signed our waivers, then blabbered away to the lady running the schedule in order to stall her until the rest of my party arrived. 

She had just kicked me off the sleigh and told me I'd have to wait another hour for the next ride when Joey pulled up, dragging a bawling Parker with him and trailing a whining Avy. The kids were cold and didn't like walking that fast (oh, what a rough life they live), but cheered at the sight of the large Mountain Horses with their jingle-bell reigns. The lady allowed us to crawl back into the sleigh, where we wrapped ourselves in bright, festive, red blankets.

Enjoying the scenery while our French driver escorts us to the far end of Lake Louise.

Then we were off! The ride lasted an hour, and we traveled at a decent pace along the right bank path. There were four sleighs in all, crunching through the snow like a winter caravan. My kids entertained themselves at first by singing "Jingle Bells" and then the beauty of the nature around us seemed to enrapture even them.

Avy having the time of her life on the sleigh ride. Thank goodness for those red blankets!

Once the kids became silent and were engrossed in looking all around them, a strange but peaceful hushed sensation fell over us. We could clearly hear the crunching of the horses' hooves in the snow, and the jingling of their reigns, but it seemed like all other sound was muted.

Parker watches the horses' hooves kick up snow.

Snow-laden evergreen branches hung over our heads to our right where the forest grew up the mountainside, and to our left the bright-white expanse of frozen Lake Louise stretched until the towering peak of Mount Fairview pierced the blue sky.

Mount Fairview towers over a frozen Lake Louise.

At the end of the trail, the sleighs rode out onto Lake Louise where they did a quick loop around and headed back onto the same trail we had just traversed. At this point, we were treated to a view of a frozen waterfall tumbling down the side of Mount St. Piran. Apparently this waterfall is only visible in the winter. In the summer, the water just seeps through rock and vegetation but never fully converges into a complete waterfall. In the winter, the water freezes and the ice layers build up enough to make a vibrant, blue, frozen cascade.

The vibrant blue frozen waterfall, visible only in winter!

We returned the same way we had left, and true to their word, Brewster had us back on the hour. I took this chance to say hello to the horses (Gary and Larry had been our lead horses) and admired the strong, immense animals.

Our lead horses - one of them had a really bad gas problem! Eeeew!

Visitors disembark the sleighs right outside the banks of Lake Louise, so it was a quick hop and a jump down to the frozen lake where benches and shelves had been assembled for skaters to don their gear. There was a giant frozen castle welcoming skaters to the lake as well, but I will delve into the Ice Festival attraction more in a later post. 

Once everyone in our family had their skates laced and tightened, we headed out to the shovelled area of the lake where tons of happy tourists were gliding along the ice. Avy was just learning to skate, so she was able to tippy-toe along as long as one of her parents supported her. Parker, who is basically useless in the cold, just wanted to be held and occasionally cried about being outside where the air hurt his face. (Side note: it wasn't even that cold during our stay in Banff. My child is just built for tropical vacations, it seems.)

Parker wishing he was on a beach somewhere instead of ice...

We did a few loops around the skating rink portion of the lake. I loved the view! No matter which direction you turned, there were either stately mountains to gaze at, or the castle-like Chateau to wonder about. Looking down, you could see frozen bubbles trapped in the ice, and the occasional teal-blue crack that hinted at just how thick the ice was.

For a two-year-old and a four-year-old, my kids lasted quite well skating on the lake. Once they got tired, we returned to the benches and retrieved our boots. We took the opportunity to explore the Ice Magic Festival, which I'll discuss in a later post.

We had a great afternoon sleighing and skating at Alberta's Lake Louise.

The bus took us back down to our car, and we returned to Banff very satisfied with our day. It was a great way to spend the afternoon outdoors, surrounded by mountains, trees, glaciers, and giant horses! 

If you haven't already, please subscribe to my YouTube channel. I post twice a week: once on Wednesdays with videos that accompany my blog posts, like the video above, and once on Sundays where I just do "Simply Video Sundays". If you read the blog, but haven't subscribed to my YouTube channel, you will miss my Sunday series! I am working hard to reach 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of watch time so I can become reinstated into the YouTube Partner Program, and I would be very grateful for your subscription and your time! 

Happy travels!