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Floe Lake Trail: Everything You Need to Know

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The Floe Lake Trail, located in Kootenay National Park, has everything you dream of when you imagine the Canadian Rockies—dramatic mountain peaks, ancient glaciers, and vibrantly blue alpine lakes. And, better yet, it doesn’t see a fraction of the crowds that swarm its more popular neighbor, Banff. So if you want to experience this stunning trail for yourself, here’s everything you need to know about the Floe Lake Trail.

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Couple standing on a beach with Floe Lake and Floe Peak and golden larches in the background along the Floe Lake Trail in Kootenay National Park in Canada
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About the Floe Lake Trail

  • Length: 12.6 miles (20.2 kilometers)
  • Elevation gain: 3,202 feet (976 meters)
  • Difficulty: Difficult
  • Dog friendly? You can bring furry friends on this hike, but they must be on a leash. 
  • Cost? Unlike some of the nearby national parks hikes, Floe Lake is FREE (we love to see it)!
  • Trail map
Man hiking through autumnal foliage with a mountain in the background along the Floe Lake Trail in Kootenay National Park in Canada

How to get to the Floe Lake Trail

The Floe Lake trailhead is located here in Kootenay National Park. 

One of the best things about Floe Lake is its proximity to Banff National Park and some of the other most popular spots in the Canadian Rockies—but without as many crowds. Here’s how far Floe Lake is from some of the other popular destinations in the area:

  • Lake Louise: 35 minutes away
  • Downtown Banff: 45 minutes away
  • Canmore: 1 hour away
  • Calgary: 2 hours away
  • Jasper: 3 hours and 15 minutes away
Truck driving along highway with mountain in the background in Banff, Canada

Unlike a handful of the hikes in the Canadian Rockies, you’ll need a car to get to the trailhead, as there’s no shuttles or buses that stop here. 

Luckily, though, regardless of which direction you’re coming from, your drive to the Floe Lake trailhead is along a paved and well-maintained road. 

The parking lot is fairly small. It only holds a couple dozen cars and fills up quickly during the busy periods, like the summer and on weekends. Accordingly, I’d strongly recommend getting here early, especially if you’re camping here overnight (more on that below!).

Cars parking in a gravel parking lot for Floe Lake Trail in Kootenay National Park in Canada

If the lot is full, you can alternatively opt to park along the Banff-Windermere Highway, but I really wouldn’t recommend it.

First of all, it’s a busy highway, with lots of wildlife running around, which increases the chances of someone accidentally swiping your car. For another, a car parked by a trailhead on a highway makes an EXTREMELY easy target for a would-be ne’er-do-well that’s interested in breaking into your car. 

What to expect along the Floe Lake Trail

Trailhead to Floe Creek

From the trailhead, the first mile or so is quite flat and through a wooded forest. That’s not to say this portion of the trail is boring, though—there’s some stunning features, like a bridge crossing over the turquoise waters of the Vermillion River, along the way.

Man hiking downhill towards Vermillion River with autumnal foliage in the background along the Floe Lake Trail in Kootenay National Park in Canada

Floe Creek to Switchbacks

At around one mile into your hike, you’ll cross a wooden bridge over Floe Creek and the trail will gradually start climbing gently uphill. After about five gentle switchbacks, the path evens out a bit and the forest opens up, providing spectacular views of Mount Verendrye straight ahead. 

Smiling woman with a mountain in the background along the Floe Lake Trail in Kootenay National Park in Canada

This relatively flat pathway continues until about 4.7 miles in, when you’ll reach the last switchbacks along the trail.

Switchbacks to Floe Lake

The final portion of the hike is a climb up these last switchbacks towards Floe Lake. It’s pretty steep, gaining around 1,500 feet in one and a half miles. 

After about 25 (butt-kicking!) switchbacks, you’ll eventually reach the ridge line you’ve been climbing to. From here, the trail slopes gently downhill, snaking through larch trees, for about 0.1 miles until you reach some of the first campsites that surround Floe Lake. 

Couple standing in front of Floe Lake and Floe Peak along the Floe Lake Trail in Kootenay National Park in Canada

On your left hand side, there will be an offshoot trail that leads through more campsites, past bear boxes, and finally, on to an overlook of the robin’s egg blue waters of Floe Lake. 

When to visit the Floe Lake Trail

The best time to hike the Floe Lake Trail is from mid-June through early October, when the trail is generally snow- and ice- free. 

If you happen to be visiting Banff in summer, Floe Lake is an excellent addition to your Canadian Rockies itinerary. However, if you want to see this trail at its most gorgeous, I’d HIGHLY recommend visiting from mid-September through early October. There’s tons of beautiful wildflowers and shrubs along the trail that turn beautiful autumnal colors and, best of all, there are TONS of beautiful larches all around Floe Lake. 

Larches in a forest with Floe Peak and Floe Lake along the Floe Lake Trail in Kootenay National Park in Canada

If you’re not familiar with larches, they’re a unique type of tree that only grows in alpine environments and is actually one of the only deciduous conifers on the planet! Accordingly, their needles turn a vibrant golden hue in the autumn before falling off for the winter. 

If you hike past late September, I’d suggest packing along trekking poles and microspikes, in case you encounter any ice or snow along the trail. My husband, Justin, and I hiked on the last day of September, when there was just a light dusting of powder around Floe Lake, but just a couple of days later, the lake’s shores and the steep switchbacks along the trail were totally COVERED with snow! 

Waterfall and forests underneath a mountain along the Floe Lake Trail in Kootenay National Park in Canada

I would not recommend hiking this trail in the wintertime, as the snow will be quite deep and there’s several avalanche chutes along the trail.

If you do decide to hit the trail during this time period, you must be well-versed in avalanche safety and have all of the necessary safety gear, like this avalanche safety kit.

Tips for the Floe Lake Trail

Be bear aware

The Kootenays are home to both black and grizzly bears and it’s not out of the realm of possibility that you may encounter some along the trail.

Grizzly bear walking through a river in Hyder, Alaska

Be sure to be familiar with bear safety tips and have bear spray readily accessible, in case you have to use it. We’ve had this bear spray for years and years (but, thankfully, have never had to use it!).

You can camp at Floe Lake

As alluded to above, there’s actually a campground around Floe Lake, with 18 campsites. You’ll need a permit to use the campground, which you can pick up here.

There’s a handful of rustic amenities at the campground, including bear boxes and a couple of vault toilets, but you’ll otherwise need to bring everything that you need to camp for a night or two with you on the trail (if you’re new to backcountry camping, we have a handy dandy backpacking gear list for beginners!). 

Campground sign for the Floe Lake Trail

We actually had a permit to camp here during our time in the Kootenays. However, Justin was feeling a bit under-the-weather so we decided to just hike instead. I was initially super bummed that we weren’t camping, but, by the time we reached Floe Lake, the area around it was INCREDIBLY windy and bitter cold (I literally couldn’t get my hands to work to operate our camera, they were so frozen!), so I’m not sure we would’ve had a super pleasant time there anyway. 

Moral of the story—if you’re camping, come prepared for all kinds of weather, as most of the trail can feel wildly different than the area directly around the lake.

There’s several add-on options to Floe Lake 

Floe Lake is kind of a longer day hike, but, if you’re looking for something even more challenging, you have several options! 

  • Numa Pass adds 5.8 miles round trip to Floe Lake. The trail is quite steep, gaining almost 2,700 miles in 2.9 miles, but you do get some stellar views along the way, including a sweeping view of Floe Peak and a towering waterfall. 
  • The Rockwall is a challenging multi-day point-to-point backpacking trip. Along the 35 mile hike, you’ll get to see hanging glaciers, alpine lakes, and, of course, the dramatic Canadian Rockies.
Couple standing on the shores of Floe Lake and Floe Peak that's surrounded by larches and pine trees along the Floe Lake Trail in Kootenay National Park in Canada

There’s a lot of fallen trees in the area

There are a LOT of dead trees along the Floe Lake trail, in large part, due to some of the wildfires that have swept through the Canadian Rockies. Accordingly, we encountered a high number of downed trees along the trail, some of which were a bit challenging to scramble around. So be prepared to get creative and don’t wear any delicate clothing that may tear easily on stray branches or knots on these trees. 

Dead trees on a mountain slope in the Canadian Rockies in Floe Lake Trail in Kootenay National Park in Canada

Additionally, I’d recommend not wearing headphones or listening to music (which is bad trail etiquette anyway!) while you’re hiking, so that you can hear if any trees around you might be falling. I was properly spooked when we were hiking to Floe Lake—the trees along the trail were SO creaky and I was fairly confident I was going to get smushed by one of them! 


I hope you enjoy the Floe Lake Trail as much as we did—it’s stunning! Do you have any questions about this hike? Let us know in the comments below!

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