Lake Louise Gondola

Winter Review: we visited in January and decided to ride the gondola up to the top because we heard it was a beautiful view. It takes about 20 minutes round trip. In the summer, you can bring food and drink up to enjoy at the top. In the winter it’s just about the view. Don’t get me wrong — it’s beautiful! And it’s fun to ride up and walk around at the top of the mountain… But it’s not worth $ 30.

A wonderful experience!
Lake Louise Gondola is what it is. a gondola at Lake Louise! It goes up to 6850 feet which is pretty high up. It’s $ 30 a person which I thought was worth it once we were at the top! The gondola ride takes about 15 minutes. You have the choice between open chair or closed chair gondola.
When you reach the top, you walk along the trail for a little bit and go to the viewpoint to take pictures.
On the way up, my family and I did the enclosed gondola. On the way down, my sister and I went on the open chair gondola. It was so much better! The fresh breeze from the air, with breathtaking views of the mountains and the trees, as you’re slowly gliding down back to the chalet. It’s very peaceful!
We went pretty early in the morning. During the afternoon, the line for the gondola got viciously long.
The music at the chalet was all over the place in terms of genre. It went from Nelly Furtado’s «Maneater,» Kool and the Gang «Ladies Night, Michael Jackson’s «Beat It», to High School Musical «We’re All In This Together.» It was interesting. They also sell food, coffee, and souvenirs.
Overall, I enjoyed going on Lake Louise Gondola. Highly recommended to go on the open chair gondola! Spectacular views!

the gondola ride is about 15 min, with beautiful views of lake louise at the top.
for an extra $ 3, you get a buffet breakfast, which is nothing fancy, just your standard fare of cereal/​toast/​waffles, sausages/​bacon/​cafeteria style eggs, coffee/​tea/​oj.
we decided to hike up some of the «trails» after arriving at the top of the gondola ride. we hiked the pika trail – from this experience alone i would not recommend hiking the trails here. at least not the pika one. a lot of it is a gravel path up the converted ski slope (which can be quite steep in some parts), not very covered by trees, and the view at the top (which had a couple other gondolas not in operation in the summer, but assume they are in use for the different slopes in the winter for skiing), is not significantly better than the view from the area at the top of the gondola ride. we found a lot of the other hikes in the area that are dedicated to hiking are more true to what’s unique about hiking through the mountains – narrow pathways covered by surrounding trees that provide ample shade, technically challenging and varying terrain from rocks to dirt. on this pika trail we just felt like we were mostly walking along a gravel path that they use cars to drive up the slopes prior to the ski season.
just saying there’s just a lot more options for better hiking experiences on trails that are dedicated to hiking, ie not just a ski slope that’s converted in the summer time.

Recommended! Choose open chair or enclosed car depending on weather. Open is much better for viewing. $ 30 ticket for ride only or add breakfast buffet for only $ 3. Lunch buffet is $ 7 add on – we did not buy food as we had already eaten so no rating here on food quality. Kids prices all lower. We saw a mama grizzly and cub directly below the tram. Staff worked constantly to keep abreast of the bears’ movement and relay info to riders for best photo op.

How could I not give Lake Louise 5 stars? What a beautiful place to be. The mountains and scenery are breathtaking. The 15 minute gondola ride is worth it, you will not regret this. I love skiing in Lake Louise, the runs are nice and long and the view from the summit is amazing! This pat time I was there it was a little icy, but I definitely still enjoyed myself. Heck, even if I wasn’t a skier I might still ride the gondola to the top and then ride it back down to the chalet… mountains are so beautiful!

We took a day to do the Icefields Parkway so it was a full day of driving. We decided to do the gondola ride here instead of Banff as I had done Banff in the past and wanted a different view. Lake Louise is a bit cheaper and I was surprised to find out that for a few dollars extra you can enjoy a breakfast or lunch buffet. We found a $ 4.00 off coupon in one of the park brochures and arrived at lunch so decided to add on the buffet.
We ate first and were please with the offerings, though disappointed that we could not find the promised sliced Alberta beef. But for about $ 7.00 extra, we felt it was a good deal.
We didn’t go to the interpretive centre at the top but just enjoyed the spectacular views. Sadly we did not spot any wildlife, grizzly or otherwise. We were okay with that as we had seen many bears, including a grizzly on our drive along the Bow Valley Parkway earlier in the day.
A nice, cheaper, less crowded alternative to the Banff gondola if you’ve already been there, done that.

It was a ski loft. Alyssa and I saw a bear. It was sweet.

An AMAZING view from the top! On a good, clear morning you can see everything in Bow Valley around here. It was one of the best things we did during the entire week touring from Banff to Jasper. We didn’t want to go down after an hour. Don’t be fooled by the advertisements for seeing wildlife. I got the impression that everything is fenced off. We rode in the open chair lift and it was awesome.

The Lake Louise summer gondola is only open from May 15 to September 26. Despite the cold weather, we chose to sit in an open chair and ride the 14 minutes up the hill exposed to the elements. This allowed for some awesome photos of the mountain scenery, as well as a clear view of the elk that were out on the grassy areas. We did not see any bears (but we did see young black bears by the side of the freeway later during our trip); supposedly, this area is a good place to view them as they come out of hibernation looking for berries and other munchies.
We visited the Interpretive Centre which seemed geared more towards kids, but the staff were highly knowledgeable and interesting to talk to. The story about the cougar in front of the case holding its skin was especially moving for me.
The views heading back down were even more spectacular, and the Lodge of the Ten Peaks looked gorgeous when the sun came out for a second and lit up the golden Canadian pine from which many of the buildings up here are built. This was the first «tourist» venue we participated in after arriving in Lake Louise (aside from walking the promenade around Lake Louise at the Fairmont), and it was a nice introduction to the area.