Peyto Lake

Banff National Park in Canada is as spectacularly beautiful as any in the U.S. Everyone who goes there or who talks with someone who’s been there knows about Lake Louise. But the lake we hadn’t heard about, the one we thought most stunning, was Peyto Lake. It’s easy to miss, and it doesn’t get a lot of ink in the guide books. But if you go to Banff NP, don’t pass it by.

The water really, truly is that turquoise. Many of the lakes in Banff and its adjacent parks are these almost surreal shades of blue and green. The reason is silt. The lakes were created by glaciers receding over rock formations. As the glaciers moved, they ground the rock into a fine powder, which settled into the lakes that formed. That powder absorbs the red, orange and yellow colors of the spectrum, and reflects the blues and greens.

We learned this from a phone app called GyPSy Guide (gypsyguide.com). The tours are inexpensive to download, usually about $5 each. It syncs up with the GPS in your phone so that when you play it back, it’s describing what you’re seeing out your window, and what’s coming up. We used it throughout our Banff trip, and again in the Glacier and Yellowstone NPs. It was always spot on, accurate and interesting.

Without it, we might have missed the turn off the highway to the tiny parking lot for Peyto Lake. Then it’s about a quarter-mile dirt path to a wooden deck overlooking the lake. Unlike Lake Louise, Morraine Lake, and some of the other better-know spots in Banff NP, there was no crowd at Peyto Lake. Except for a Japanese couple and their baby son, we had it to ourselves. And that alone makes it one of the rarest and most precious summertime sites in the area. I’d love to go back to Banff. And if I do, I hope to go right after Labor Day, when all the other tourists have gone back home.