's Grassi Lakes + continuing to the pictographs Hike
The Grassi Lakes trail is a very popular hike just outside Canmore. On your way up you have two choices to take once you get reach the fork. Time vs experience, your best bet is to take the 'more difficult' way up as it takes you to see all the views as it is ever changing and take the 'easy' way back. The 'easy' route is just a wide road that slowly turns as it heads up/down. You are in the forest the entire time and see absolutely nothing. It really is just something you want to take as a descent as the 'more difficult' route really doesn't pose any difficulties.
How to get to Grassi Lakes?
Pass the Canmore Nordic Centre and follow Smith Dorrien Spray Trail as it circles around the small reservoir. Just as the road turns into gravel you will notice a road going sharply down on the left hand side. Head down that and you fill see the parking lot at the bottom with the trail head on the right has side. There is signage on the road marking this area as a recreational area.
Grassi Lakes trip log
The trail head is just on the edge of the parking lot behind the outhouse and pretty apparent.
Soon after you start you come to a fork in the road. In our opinion you should take the 'more difficult' route up as you actually see all the views where as the 'easy' route just takes you through the forest and you see absolutely nothing until you reach the very end.
After a bit of walking you eventually pass a sign that warns of cliffs. Basically means that you shouldn't walk off the trail to your left as there are steep cliffs. Stay on the trail and you won't have any problems.
Soon after you come to a nice view point that shows off the large cascading waterfall off the side of the cliff. From here just follow the trail to the right to continue.
Very shortly after, switchbacks help you gain some elevation.
One of the hardest part of this whole hike are the stairs. Not very hard at all in reality but it involves some stretching of your legs as each step is fair bit higher than your normal stair.
Once you get to the top the view is superb. There is a collection of small lakes/ponds with walking paths that circle them. You can spend quite a bit of time up here as there is a countless amount of beautiful things to see up here.
If you are interested in seeing the pictographs first hand, at the far end of the last lake there is a path that leads to a set of stairs. You will want to head up this trail as it climbs a few sets of stairs and leads you through the canyon. There is a sign that points you to the pictographs when you come up to them so you don't have to bother looking around trying to find them as the sign is right on the trail.
You come to a sign that points you to the right, a few meters off the trail is where you will find the pictographs on the side of the rock. They are a little faded from weathering and people touching it so it is best to look, not touch.
For the return, once you get back to the lakes, you have the choice of taking the 'more difficult' route or 'easy' route. If you took the harder route up and just you want to get back down quick then take the easy route as it's a wide gravel road all the way down. If you took the easy route up then you might as well take the 'more difficult' route down so you see all the sights.
GPS Plotted Route
The top right is the start point. The left route is the "Easy" route and the right line is the "More Difficult" route. The lines go past Grassi Lakes and to the pictographs a little furthur in the canyon.
We took the more difficult route up and the easy way down and you can see it is a wee bit steeper to go, but you see all the nice sights instead of being stuck on a gravel road through the trees. The GPS does go all the way to the pictographs so the last large spikes the stairs and steeper ground on the way up there. Grassi Lakes is about where all the top zig zags are. Not sure what happened on the descent at the end since the GPS shows a random hill and doesn't quite end at our start point.
If there is any change to the route you feel others should know about, shoot us an e-mail from our contact page.
