Moraine Lake Road: Finding a Balance — State of the Mountains

by James Eastham

Parks Canada recently announced that personal vehicles will no longer be allowed to drive to Moraine Lake. Visitors to Banff National Park hoping to access the lake or one of its many hiking trails or climbing routes have one of three options:

Moraine Lake in the Valley of the Ten Peaks, Banff National Park. Photo: J.F. Bergeron

Make a reservation on the Parks Canada shuttle. Shuttles depart for Moraine Lake every fifteen minutes between 6:30am and 6:00pm and cost $8 for adults and $4 for seniors. The final return shuttle leaves Moraine Lake at 7:30pm. Up to ten seats can be booked under one reservation.
Arrange for transportation on a private shuttle, taxi service, or charter bus licensed by Parks Canada.
Bike or e-bike the twelve-kilometre-long access road.

While this system meets the needs of the vast majority of visitors, some groups, including climbers and mountaineers, may find accessing Moraine Lake more challenging than in the past.

We wanted to take the opportunity to reach out directly to the climbing community in order to outline the challenges in managing access to one of Canada’s busiest destinations, to explain how this decision was made, and the alternatives we considered when planning access changes for 2023.

Why manage traffic at all?

Demand for vehicle access to Moraine Lake has grown steadily and Parks Canada has had to actively manage traffic to ensure emergency access to Moraine Lake and Lake Louise, and to prevent congestion along Lake Louise Drive from backing up onto the Trans-Canada Highway.

In previous years, active traffic management on Moraine Lake Road was only required during the early morning to early evening. In 2022, traffic management was required twenty-four-hours-a-day. No matter how early visitors arrived, they were likely to be turned away. At peak times, one vehicle was turned away every two seconds due to a lack of available parking. Approximately 5,000 vehicles per day – ninety per cent of all vehicles attempting to access Moraine Lake – were turned away.

Moraine Lake parking lot. Photo: Zoya Lynch

This number likely includes many climbers who arrived in the twilight hours only to find the access road closed due to a lack of parking.

Why not just run an earlier shuttle?

Many online commentators have suggested the easiest solution is for Parks Canada to simply extend the shuttle operational hours. Unfortunately, this is not currently possible.

To understand why, we have to take a step back to examine how Parks Canada balances human use and access to the park with ecological preservation. These mutually supportive goals are the foundation of Canada’s national parks system and the Parks Canada mandate.

“Demand for vehicle access to Moraine Lake has grown steadily and Parks Canada has had to actively manage traffic to ensure emergency access to Moraine Lake and Lake Louise.”

There are two main wildlife corridors in the Lake Louise area. Both are bisected by roads. The Fairview Corridor, on the west (lake) side of the Trans-Canada Highway, is bisected by Lake Louise Drive. The Whitehorn Corridor, on the east (Park & Ride) side of the highway, is bisected by Whitehorn Drive. Busy traffic periods on these roads act as barriers to wildlife travelling through these corridors. To maintain habitat connectivity, Parks Canada works hard to minimize disturbances in both corridors during the early-morning and late-evening hours to give wildlife opportunity to move for food, mates, and safety. We do this by managing vehicle traffic to maintain predictable periods of low-traffic volumes, including an overnight vehicle restriction on Whitehorn Drive leading to the shuttle Park and Ride. Between 6:00am and 8:00pm, no vehicles are allowed past the junction at the Bow Valley Parkway (Highway 1A) on Whitehorn Drive. Running an early morning shuttle could jeopardise wildlife movement.

Public engagement on the Banff Park Management Plan (2022) revealed strong support for protecting wildlife and wildlife movement corridors. Parks Canada continues to look for ways to maintain or improve connectivity through these wildlife corridors while striving to provide opportunities for a full range of visitors to experience these iconic places.

Ok, but in the meantime, why don’t you run an early shuttle from the old Park and Ride location?

The Parks Canada shuttle service for Lake Louise.

The old Park and Ride location is five kilometres east of Lake Louise on the Trans-Canada Highway. It does pose fewer disturbances to wildlife corridors, and coordinating a small number of early morning departures would be a simple enough task. However, returning visitors to this location throughout the day would require running a second shuttle system. Two Park and Ride locations would create confusion for visitors and add complexity and untenable cost to the system that could not be recovered through user fees.

Additionally, the Trans-Canada Highway location was decommissioned as a Park and Ride site in response to feedback received during public engagement for Banff Park Management Plan. This was in part due to safety concerns with traffic turning left across the Trans-Canada Highway. Operating from the former location would negate the safety benefits realized from moving the Park and Ride to the Lake Louise Ski Area. During summer season, the decommissioned Park and Ride site now serves as overflow camping for the Lake Louise campground and an inspection station for aquatic invasive species.

If you can’t run an early shuttle, why not allow people to reserve parking?

Parks Canada considered both twenty-four-hour reservable parking and reservable parking outside of shuttle access hours. However, these options were deemed infeasible for two reasons.

First, reservable parking requires space to stop and check vehicles against the reservation list. The Moraine Lake Road junction on Lake Louise Drive does not have the space to conduct these checks without causing significant congestion. Even one car stopped for thirty seconds can be enough to cause a traffic jam. The junction’s proximity to the Trans-Canada Highway means that congestion can, and in the past did, back up onto the highway in a matter of minutes.

“Parks Canada considered both twenty-four-hour reservable parking and reservable parking outside of shuttle access hours.”

Second, in order to maximize the use of available parking, reservable parking systems also feature timed entry and limits. For example, parking at the Grotto in Bruce Peninsula National Park is reservable for four-hour blocks. The wide variety of visitor needs at Moraine Lake, ranging from those staying thirty minutes to those staying for twelve hours or more, make timed parking difficult to implement efficiently.

Why not create a climber’s only parking pass?

There is no practical way for Parks Canada to ensure that only “real climbers” would receive these permits. In practice, anyone could apply, demand would still outstrip supply, and such a system would effectively become a lottery for parking at Moraine Lake.

It’s worth noting that prioritizing certain users over others invites questions about who is most deserving of access to national parks. Other groups, such as sunrise photographers or once-in-a-lifetime visitors, would be quick to argue that they too deserved the privilege.

Safeguarding access at the expense of convenience

Reserving transportation through a licensed Parks Canada commercial operator will take more effort for climbers whose needs are not met by the Parks Canada shuttle system. But reserved transportation will also guarantee access to the lake. No longer will you arrive at 2:00am, stoked to begin your climb up the East Ridge of Mt. Temple, only to be turned away. When you have your weather window and make your plans, you will make it to the start of the climb.

Parks Canada aims to protect these extraordinary places while meeting the needs of visitors equitably and fairly. Yet no solution is perfect. We remain committed to improving access to busy places and will continue to make changes to safeguard access for future generations of climbers.

For more information on access to Moraine Lake and Lake Louise, please visit: https://parks.canada.ca/pn-np/ab/banff/visit/parkbus/louise

James Eastham is a Public Relations and Communications Officer for the Lake Louise, Yoho, Kootenay Field Unit, Parks Canada.