Canmore Day Hike: Grassi Lakes & Grotto Canyon

Most Banff-area tours put you back in the vehicle every 45 minutes. This one doesn’t. The Canmore Day Hike is built around two of the most rewarding trails in the Canadian Rockies — Grotto Canyon and Grassi Lakes — roughly 8 km of real terrain across a full day, with a guide who’s walked both in every season.

Grotto Canyon comes first. You walk inside a limestone slot canyon, walls rising up to 60 metres in the narrowest sections, carved by water over thousands of years, with the creek running down the middle. In summer it’s an easy walk with a few ankle-deep crossings (sneakers are fine). In winter the creek freezes solid and the canyon becomes a natural ice corridor — visually unlike anything else you can reach without technical gear, and one of the most underrated winter experiences in the Rockies. Ice cleats are provided. Halfway through, our guides stop at the Indigenous pictographs: red ochre figures painted on the canyon walls by First Nations people between 500 and 1,300 years ago, still visible if you know where to look. Our team explains what’s known about them, and what isn’t.

After lunch in Canmore, the route heads up to Grassi Lakes — two small turquoise lakes set in a limestone bowl above town, with the full width of the Bow Valley laid out below. The hike is 1.7 km each way with 170 m of elevation gain: moderate for fit walkers, a proper effort if you don’t hike regularly. The payoff at the top is one of the most overlooked viewpoints in the area — photographers consistently rate it above more famous spots. In winter, the surrounding ice formations make it genuinely otherworldly.

This is the most physically active tour Banff Journey runs. Come prepared to walk.

Price is per person — please set the quantity to your total group size.