Canyon Creek Ice Cave

May 29, 2026

Distance: 13.4 km

Elevation gain: 492m

Time required: 4-5 hours

This is the first major hike I have done since I moved to Calgary about a month ago. I love having a new backyard to explore. There are endless mountains and trails to explore in Kananaskis and Banff.

This one started in the Elbow Valley off of Hwy 66. The trailhead is just before Elbow Falls.

The first 5 km is easy walking on a wide gravel service road. It follows along Canyon Creek and offers excellent views of the surrounding peaks and the beautiful, towering limestone/dolomite cliffs that are popular with rock climbers. I saw a handful of climbers on the cliffs as I passed.

Views of Moose Mountain from the road. Moose Mtn SW on the left and SE on the right

I also saw tons of marmots. They didn't seem too bothered by me.

On the map, I saw a 700m detour to something called Pika Cave. The trail climbed steeply through the forest before leading to the base of some steep scree slops. After awhile I reached the base of some rocks that I was supposed to scramble up. It seemed steep and a bit sketchy so I turned around at this point. I guess it wasn't in the cards for me to see some pikas today.

Back on the main road, it comes to a substation that is situated on the creek. To the left, the trail heads off into the forest. It's pretty well marked and like the detour I attempted, it comes to the base of some scree slopes. I accidentally went in the wrong direction so after realizing it, I spent some time hiking laterally across the slopes to get back to where I needed to be.

The trail climbs for about 45 minutes before reaching the Canyon Creek ice cave. It's super neat. Caves kind of freak me out so I only went to the entrance, however, you can climb up to 200m inside it. A group of guys I met there went all the way to the end. They said the walls are sheets of ice.

Almost at the ice cave

The entrance to the cave

This is as far as I dared to go. However, it extends almost 200m into blackness. It's very cold inside.

Looking out from the inside of the cave

A view of Prairie Mountain from the cliff

The way down is much quicker. It only took an hour and 40 minutes to get back to my car.

AllTrails ranks the hike as moderate, likely due to the time spent on the easy service road, but I would rate it closer to hard. Not everyone wants to climbs scree slops and get to the edge of a cliff.