Rocky Mountain Lakes

I have a ton of great photos to upload but gmail (a thousand curses upon it) will not allow me to do so. Until I get that sorted out I can only upload text here. Stay tuned.
We enjoyed a suberb breakfast at the chic hotel across the road, the Post Hotel. The dining room had a European look to it. As it turns out, the place is owned by Swiss and many of the help are Swiss too. We are delighted to run across so many young people from abroad working in the area. We have met delightful citizens of every continent, including a guy from Tamil Nadu, several Swiss, Germans and Aussies. The weather looked promising this morning so we headed north on the Icefields Parkway. This is the road that goes up to Jasper, 240 km further on, a bit too far to drive and return in one day. The name of the road stems from the many glaciers that wind their way down the mountains, draining into various lakes. The scenery defies description. Spectacular is the word that comes to mind, again and again. Being in the Canadian Rockies is really humbling when one considers the forces that pushed these massive formations up towards the sky. Our first stop was at Bow Lake with a view of the Crowfoot Glacier. The interestingly named Num-Ti-Jah Lodge is the only structure on the shores of the lake. (We thought the name sounded vaguely Hindu and should be chanted as Om Num Ti Jah Namaha -- what spirits might that evoke?) Further along was Peyto Lake. We had a short walk on a nice trail then packed snow to get to it. The sight was breathtaking -- the most intense shade of turquiose we have ever seen. The hue is created by the mineral deposits in the water, of course. For those who deny global warming, here is a shocking fact: the glacier that feeds this lake is already two thirds gone, the rest will disappear in a few decades. The snow deposits melt too fast for the glacier to replenish itself. The land is covered by endless conifer forests, utterly wild and nearly unihabited. We were at an altitude of 7,000 feet here, the highest point on the road. It was quite chilly with plenty of snow around but warmed up nicely when the sun came out. We even had the joy of a light snow with sunshine! We headed back south for our third lake, one just south of Lake Louise, Lake Moraine. Despite its awesome setting, with ten different peaks in a row, it made a gloomy impression. There are monumental rock faces that have been sheared off and tumbled into huge piles of rubble below. Impressive, but not pretty. We enjoyed an afternoon snack on the terrace of what should be called the Lake Gloom and Doom Lodge. There are visitors from all over the world here (and we enjoy deciphering their languages), many Japanese, Germans, Swiss, Chinese, British, etc. It is perhaps a bit early in the season (it is barely spring), but we are avoiding the hordes of tourists that come through here in the high season.