Grotto Canyon: A Family Friendly Hike Near Canmore

Grotto Canyon is a narrow slot canyon with pictographs and waterfalls that’s an easy hike just outside Canmore. Given its credentials and year-round access, it shouldn’t be surprising that it’s a popular hike with visitors and locals.

It’s tough to pick the best time to visit the canyon as the seasons always offer something unique, particularly summer and winter. Winter is a particularly popular time as the creek and waterfalls freeze. The summer is a great way to beat the heat by hopping over rocks as you move up the creek through the canyon.

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Grotto Canyon Trail Description

The trailhead to access Grotto Canyon starts at the Grotto Mountain Day Use Area. It’s a large day use area set next to a scenic pond with picnic tables, long drop toilets, and trash cans.

From the car park follow the well-marked trail that follow a wide gravel path parallel to the Baymag plant and under some power lines. It’s far from the most scenic start to a hike near Canmore, and there is often quite a bit of noise coming from the plant.

However, the path is short lived at about 1 km before you reach the rocky creek bed that leads into Grotto Canyon. At the start of the creek there is a really nice bench with sweeping views of Mount Lougheed across the valley. From here you’ll enter the canyon, which has fairly rough terrain as it’s filled with river rocks.

The trail follows the creek upstream through the canyon. As you move along, the limestone walls close in, and you quickly find yourself in the midst of a slot canyon. Winter visits are particularly easy as the creek freezes over, and packed snow makes for an easy, level surface.

Summer takes on a wildly different path, but it’s still easy as the creek is rarely more than trickle that is easy to navigate. The only time the trail can be challenging is in the spring as the snow melts away.

As you move through the canyon keep an eye out for the faint indigenous pictographs that are on the left hand side of the wall in the canyon. In an effort to protect them, we are not sharing the exact distance or location, so you’ll have to put in the work to find them. It should go without saying, but do not touch or mark the pictographs.

The canyon walls really start to narrow at points, and limestone walls reach ever higher above the trail. It’s around here that the trail is at its most dramatic, with huge walls flanking you and a waterfall coming down into the canyon.

Even in the spring and summer, the waterfall is rarely more than a trickle, but the canyon and cliff walls provide the scenery and drama. The waterfall is near the canyon’s end, and the trail continues on for another five or ten minutes before it teeters out into a rocky creek.

It’s well worth continuing to the end as the views are still great. When the canyon walls drop away it also provides some mountain views. The return trail is the same, and you’ll now see the canyon from a different angle.

Trail Difficulty

Grotto Canyon is an easy hike in the Bow Valley that anyone who can comfortably walk for 5km should be able to complete. Most kids and pets should have no problem with this hike.

Trail Length

The trail is less than 5km out and back, but if you’re feeling tired you can turn around as soon as you would like and head back the way you came. You’ll gain about 200 meters along the entire trail, but it’s all a very gradual climb and rarely ever feels strenous.

When is the Best Time to Hike Grotto Canyon?

Grotto Canyon is a year round hike. We personally love it in the winter to see the frozen falls!