Grassi Lakes

Sunday brought another opportunity to get out to the mountains to enjoy a fantastic spring day.  The destination for today was Grassi Lakes, just outside of Canmore.  Grassi Lakes is another one of those popular hiking trails, so this is a great time to get out there for a bit of extra solitude.  There are two routes to hike Grassi Lakes, an easy route that follows a fire road, or a more difficult route with better opportunities for views.

Which way to go?

As the trail along the more difficult route looked to be fairly well worn in the snow we headed off that way.  The route continued through the trees, but then all of a sudden they broke and the views were amazing.There were tiny rivers that were starting to flow down the mountain side. The water started to roar louder and louder, and soon we saw why.  A waterfall!Unfortunately at this point the trail wasn’t quite so easy to see.  The slope increased and there was quite a bit more ice out there.  At that point we decided we’d be better off returning to the split in the trail to tackle the easy route to get to the falls.  You can see in the picture below, the hard route is on the right side.  We were pretty close to the lakes (on the bottom left of the picture)…who knew?!The easy route was a good uphill walk in the snow, made easy with some Yak Trax.  It wasn’t too long…and then we were at the lakes!  The water was an amazing colour.  Unfortunately my pictures didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped given the somewhat overcast sky on the snow, but you get the idea.On the way back down we saw several people hiking up in Converse All Star sneakers…dress shoes…you name it!  It isn’t nearly as icy out at Grassi Lakes as it was at the Ink Pots, but it still baffles me that people head out to hike the Rocky Mountains in March without proper footwear!

Total Distance: 4.19 mi (to hike almost all the difficult route and all the easy route)
Time: ~2 hours
Elevation Gain: 1650 feet