Grassi Lakes

• Length: 2 km/1.2 miles (40 minutes) one-way
• Elevation gain: 300 meters/980 feet
• Rating: easy/moderate
• Trailhead: Spray Village, beyond the Nordic center, six km (3.7 miles) west of downtown off Spray Lakes Road

This historical trail climbs to two small lakes below Chinaman’s Peak. From the parking lot just off Spray Lakes Road, take the left fork 150 meters (.1 mile) along the trail. It climbs steadily to stairs cut into a cliff face before leading up to a bridge over Canmore Creek and to the lakes. Interpretive signs along the trail point out interesting aspects of the Bow Valley and detail the life of Lawrence Grassi, who built the trail in the early 1920s. With Chinaman’s Peak as a backdrop, these gin-clear, spring-fed lakes are a particularly rewarding destination. Behind the upper lake, an easy scramble up a scree slope leads to four pictographs (native rock paintings) of human figures. They are on the first large boulder in the gorge. An alternate return route is down a rough access road between the hiking trail and Spray Lakes Road, passing a broken-down log cabin along the way.