Moraine Lake in 3D: See the Ten Peaks Before You Book a Shuttle

Glacial blue water beneath ten Rocky Mountain summits, in a Banff valley you can no longer drive into. Here is how to explore Moraine Lake in 3D with live Street View, from your iPhone.

Moraine Lake sits at the foot of the Valley of the Ten Peaks, high in the Canadian Rockies above Lake Louise village in Banff National Park, Alberta. The water is a saturated blue-green that looks edited in photographs, and behind it ten summits stand shoulder to shoulder in one wall of grey rock and snow. It is the view that once appeared on the back of the Canadian twenty-dollar note.

The obstacle now is access rather than fame. Parks Canada has closed Moraine Lake Road to private vehicles, so the ways in are the park shuttle, regional transit, a licensed commercial operator, a bicycle or your own legs. The road is seasonal too: it is not cleared in winter, opening around the start of summer and closing in mid-autumn. Shuttle seats for the good hours go quickly, and the colour everyone comes for needs weeks of melt behind it before it arrives.

All of which makes this a trip that rewards planning. You can explore Moraine Lake and the valley above it today in 3D, with live Street View on the roads that lead there, from your phone.

What makes Moraine Lake special

The colour is not a trick of the light, though light helps. Glaciers grind the bedrock beneath them into a powder so fine it stays suspended in meltwater — rock flour. Those particles scatter the blue and green end of the spectrum back at you, and because the lake is fed almost entirely by snow and glacial melt from the peaks around it, it carries that suspension all summer.

The name is a small misunderstanding worth knowing. The great heap of boulders damming the lake at its outlet — the Rockpile, which you climb for the classic view — is generally read by geologists as rockslide debris rather than a true glacial moraine. The lake was named first and corrected later.

Behind the water stand the Ten Peaks. They were originally identified by numbers in the Stoney Nakoda language, and Wenkchemna, the name carried by the pass and glacier at the head of the valley, simply means ten. Most of the summits have proper names now, but the counting is why they are still treated as a set.

How to explore Moraine Lake in 3D

MAPAS builds terrain in real three dimensions, which matters here more than in most places, because the entire character of the valley is vertical. You can tilt, rotate and fly the ridgeline, then drop into live Street View where roads exist.

For a first run, try this order:

1. Search for Moraine Lake, Banff National Park and switch to 3D so the valley lifts out of the map.
2. Tilt until the Ten Peaks rise into a wall, then rotate slowly along it to Wenkchemna Pass at the far end.
3. Bring the camera low over the Rockpile at the outlet and look back down the lake — the angle every photograph is taken from, without the queue.
4. Follow the shoreline trail along the north side to the far end, where the inflow spreads into gravel flats.
5. Climb the switchbacks of the Larch Valley trail towards Sentinel Pass and watch how fast the height comes on.
6. Drop into live Street View near the Lake Louise junction to see the approach, then save the shuttle stop for GPS navigation on the day.

Beyond the Valley of the Ten Peaks

• Lake Louise — the other famous lake, a short distance away, with its own shuttle and its own crowd.
• Consolation Lakes — a modest walk from the Rockpile into a boulder-strewn valley most visitors skip.
• Larch Valley and Sentinel Pass — the steep classic above Moraine, gold with larch needles in late September.
• Paradise Valley — a quieter approach into the same range, reached from Moraine Lake Road.
• Yoho National Park — Emerald Lake and Takakkaw Falls, just over the provincial border in British Columbia.

Why the lake changes through the season

A photograph shows one moment, and this lake is not the same from month to month. Through late spring it is still partly frozen and low, and the colour is muted. As the melt gathers pace the basin fills and the suspension thickens, and by high summer the blue-green is at its most intense under a midday sun. Come autumn the inflow slows, the water clears slightly and drops, and gravel reappears at the shallow end.

The 3D view explains the shape behind all this. You can see that the lake occupies a basin held back by the rockpile, that the Ten Peaks form one continuous barrier rather than separate mountains, and that the trails climb far more steeply than their distances suggest. The valley faces roughly northeast, which is why the peaks catch the first light and the water waits its turn.

Before you go

The road is generally open from around the start of June until mid-October, weather permitting, and closed outside that window. Late September brings the larches and the year's heaviest demand. Mornings are the coldest and the clearest.

This is grizzly country, and Parks Canada regularly requires groups of four or more on the Larch Valley and Sentinel Pass trails during berry season, so check the notices before you set out. Carry bear spray and know how to use it. The water stays cold enough to numb a hand even in August, and frozen over from late autumn until well into June, which makes a canoe the sensible way onto it. Stay on the trails; ground disturbed at this altitude recovers slowly.

Common questions

Can I drive to Moraine Lake?

No. Private vehicles are not allowed on Moraine Lake Road. Access is by Parks Canada shuttle, regional transit, a licensed tour operator, bicycle or on foot, and the road closes for the winter season regardless.

When is the water at its bluest?

From roughly mid-summer onward, once the melt has filled the basin and loaded it with rock flour. Bright overhead light brings out the most colour, while early June visits often find the lake still low and partly iced.

Is MAPAS free to use?

Yes. It is free on the App Store, needs no sign-up before you start exploring, and works on iPhone and iPad.

Moraine Lake has been photographed so thoroughly that it can feel already seen. Standing on the Rockpile at first light corrects that quickly, because the scale of the wall behind the water is not something a lens holds onto.

Open MAPAS, tilt the Valley of the Ten Peaks until the ridge stands up, and take the walk in 3D before you go looking for a shuttle seat.