No trip to Banff National Park is complete without an early morning visit to Moraine Lake. To me, it is the iconic location, even though Lake Louise (about 30 minutes east) gets all of the press and many more visitors. Don't get me wrong, during the summer season, Moraine Lake's parking lot is completely full, and you need to board a bus to get there. If you get there in the early morning hours, parking should not be a problem.
The reason I love this location is more about the mountains that surround the lake. There are ten mountain peaks that surround the lake, and this area is known as The Valley of the Ten Peaks. There are several popular places to shoot the lake, but I like taking the trail to the top of the rock pile to get the view that is shown in this photo. Lake Moraine has become just as popular as most of the iconic locations are. Many articles attribute that to the popularity of Instagram. It used to be there would only be photographers with serious cameras shooting from the rockpile, but last month it was as crowded as I have seen it, and the majority of people were shooting with cell phones. I guess that’s the price of posting images on social media.