Grassi Lakes - Canmore - Alberta
Grassi Lakes is the name given to two small waterholes just outside the town of Canmore, to get there you take a well established 'tourist trail' from a large and well signed car park in the shadow of Ha ling peak just off highway 742. I walked here with Cecil just to check it out on a steady day. It's only about 4km round trip even if you circumnavigate both lakes, it would make a nice family walk on a summer day but don't expect more.
Once you find the car park, the trailhead is unmissable as it bears a large named sign. The trail is wide and easy going and heavily forested throughout.
A very short distance from the start of the walk is a fork in the trail, the right hand fork is the easier route and today was the only option for our ascent. The more difficult route is closed off for winter due to significant ice formation on the steep trail (though we did return that way!!)
On occasion the Fairholme Range which sits opposite can be viewed through small windows in the foliage. Photography is difficult in this area as it is always in 'open shade' which is an awful type of reflected daylight (from a photography perspective)
The trail climbs continuously but never steeply until you reach a small plateau where you get the first glimpse of the beautiful green water in the lower of the two small pools.
There was little wildlife along the way but that is to be expected when 3 out of 4 people along here are walking dogs. The best we got was a couple of ducks on the lake.
The shot below shows the whole of the lower lake (which is the biggest of the two) sitting tight up to the very end of Mt Rundle to the west and in the shadow of Ha Ling Peak to the north.
The upper lake is joined to the lower via a small overflow which is littered with the corpses of winter fallen trees which gather around the overflow like lemmings awaiting their turn at the cliff edge.
It's quite difficult to find a vantage point that lets you get a good shot of the lakes and surrounding vista whilst avoiding the myriad of overhead lines that seem to be working to get into every shot. The image below was taken via a short scramble up a rocky outcrop between the upper and lower lakes and shows the lower lake and a glimpse of Grotto Mountain in the distance.
Behind the upper pool is a short area of rockfall where you can make a small circuit and reach an overlook for the upper and lower lakes together. In the distance the Fairholme Range dominates the horizon and on the upper right one of those damn cables makes an appearance.
There are small bridges, walkways, wooden steps and benches for the weary dotted around both pools, there are also a few very shallow caverns in the limestone cliffs which the kids would no doubt enjoy. To make the circular route (very tricky in winter & Spring due to ice) you pass into more open space where views are easier to find.
In the shot below the Fairholme Range towers over Canmore and in the foreground is the man made canal that is part of the hydro electric process here (though Grassi Lakes are not part of that process).
There are enormous areas where the forest is engulfed by the frozen falls, the trail is similarly affected and some of the descents can be a little 'interesting' as a result.
As we made our descent through the ice filled forest trail a few snow showers blew through sometimes causing momentary cloudbursts to illuminate the snow on the Fairholme summits as shown below in the moody shot of Grotto Mountain.
Once back to more level ground it is a nice forest walk with a less 'touristy' feel which brings you back to the fork in the trail close to the car park.
If you do visit Grassi Lakes don't forget to extend your trip to include the overlook along highway 742 at Whitmans Gap where you can find a few more shots of the surrounding mountains and perhaps a passing snowstorm.