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Not quite so many people as visit Lake Louise make the thirteen-kilometre road journey to Moraine Lake , which is smaller than its neighbour although in many ways its scenic superior. If you're without your own transport, you'll have to rely on a bike or taxi ($35) to get here or the new park-run "Vista" bus shuttle (daily every 30min from outside the hostel and Lake Louise campsite; free on production of park pass). The last has been introduced because of the sheer number of visitors in cars and RVs trying to cram into the tiny car park and clogging the approach road. No wonder they come, for this is one of the great landscapes of the region and has some cracking trails into the bargain . It also holds one of the most enticing and magnificently executed hotels in the entire Rockies: if you're on honeymoon, or just want to push the boat out once, splash out on a night or two in the Moraine Lake Lodge (tel 522-3733, www.morainelake.com ; $240 and up; May-Oct), a nicely landscaped collection of high-quality cabins plus eight lodge rooms and six other units designed by eminent architect Arthur Erickson (also responsible for Vancouver's UBC Museum of Anthropology and the Canadian Embassy in Washington DC): cabins are probably best, if only for their open fires. It boasts a friendly staff and great privacy, for prices on a par with decidedly more lacklustre hotels in the village and near Lake Louise. Bar the Lodge , with its good little cafe and top-notch restaurant, nothing disturbs the lake and its matchless surroundings. Until comparatively recently the scene graced the back of Canadian $20 bills, though the illustration did little justice to the shimmering water and the jagged, snow-covered peaks on the eastern shore that inspired the nickname "Valley of the Ten Peaks". The peaks are now officially christened the Wenkchemna, after the Stoney native word for "ten". The lake itself, half the size of Lake Louise, is the most vivid turquoise imaginable. Like Lake Louise and other big Rockies lakes (notably Peyto on the Icefields Parkway), the peacock blue is caused by fine particles of glacial silt, or till, known as rock flour. Meltwater in June and July washes this powdered rock into the lake, the minute but uniform particles of flour absorbing all colours of incoming light except those in the blue-green spectrum. When the lakes have just melted in May and June - and are still empty of silt - their colour is a more normal sky blue. You can admire the lake by walking along the east shore, from above by clambering over the great glacial moraine dam near the lodge (though the lake was probably created by a rock fall rather than glaciation), or from one of the canoes for rent on the right just beyond the Lodge and car park. For the best overall perspective, tackle the switchback trail through the forest on the east shore , but check with the visitor centre at Lake Louise for the latest on bear activity - a young grizzly has made the Moraine Lake region its home, and areas are sometimes closed to avoid its coming in contact with humans.
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