Lake Louise hikes: every trail, easy to hard

The map to carry is the Parks Canada map of the Lake Louise area, a free PDF, and it is the source of every figure on this page. Save it to your phone before you leave the village. There is no mobile signal at either tea house, so a map that needs a connection is no map at all up there.

Every trail on the map leaves from one of three places. From the lakeshore in front of the Chateau: Lake Louise Lakeshore, Lake Agnes, Plain of Six Glaciers, Big Beehive, Fairview Lookout and Saddleback Pass, Little Beehive, Fairview Mountain. From Moraine Lake: Larch Valley and Sentinel Pass, Moraine Lake Rockpile, Moraine Lake Lakeshore, Consolation Lakes, Eiffel Lake, Wenkchemna Pass. From the village: Bow River Loop, Tramline, Louise Creek.

Two of the lakeshore trails are reached through another. The Big Beehive and the Little Beehive both start at Lake Agnes, so you climb to the tea house first. Fairview Mountain is reached over Saddleback Pass. On the Moraine Lake side, Eiffel Lake and Wenkchemna Pass branch off the Larch Valley trail. Moraine Lake itself is 14 kilometres from the Lake Louise lakeshore by Moraine Lake Road, and the village sits below both lakes with the Tramline and Louise Creek trails as the walking links up to the water.

The high trails are in their summer season. Parks Canada publishes the trail report that says which trails are open, which carry a bear warning and which need a minimum group size, and it is the only source that does. Read it on the morning you walk, not the week before.

The report itself is on the Parks Canada site: Lake Louise area trail conditions. This page carries the season rules and the trail figures. It does not carry the live closures, because they change on the day, and a stale closure is worse than none. The conditions page has the weather, the webcams and the road today.

The four trails below need no real climbing. Two start in front of the Chateau, and two start at Moraine Lake, which means a shuttle seat before anything else.

The two tea house trails are the half-day hikes, and the tea houses page compares the two in detail. Both open early June to early October. Lake Agnes Tea House runs 8 am to 4 pm and Plain of Six Glaciers Teahouse runs 9 am to 5 pm. Both are best paid in cash. Lake Agnes publishes no card policy; the Plain of Six Glaciers takes cards only when its solar power allows and asks for Canadian cash as a backup. There is no mobile signal at either, so bring notes.

Three routes turn a tea house climb into a full day. None of them is a scramble, and all three start with the same climb from the lakeshore.

Moraine Lake Road is closed to personal vehicles year-round. Every hike below starts with a shuttle seat, a licensed operator or a bicycle, and the Moraine Lake shuttle page explains how to get one. The Moraine Lake page covers the lake itself. Larch Valley is the only Moraine Lake trail with a page of its own here; the others have their figures in the table and below.

Choose by the time you have, then by the climb you want, then by whether you want a tea house at the end. The table sorts every trail by those three questions.

On fitness, the difficulty column is the honest guide. Easy means flat or nearly so. Moderate means a sustained climb on a good path, which is the two tea house trails and Saddleback. Hard means either the switchbacks above Lake Agnes, or the long days out of Moraine Lake, where the time on your feet matters more than any single steep section.

If you want a tea house, the choice is between the shorter, steeper climb to Lake Agnes and the longer, gentler walk to the Plain of Six Glaciers. If you want nobody around, walk to Saddleback Pass or Consolation Lakes. If you want the photograph, it is the Rockpile at Moraine Lake or the Big Beehive above Lake Louise, and both cost you a shuttle seat or a climb.

July, August and the first half of September are the months when every trail on this page is open at once. Everything above the lakeshore holds snow into late June, and the ground near both tea houses can still be under it when the valley is green. The tea houses themselves open early June to early October.

The colour usually arrives in the second week of September, peaks in the third, and is gone by the first week of October. Cold nights bring it on and a windy week takes it away early. That fortnight is the busiest of the year at Moraine Lake, and the road is open to the shuttles from 1 June 2026 to 12 October 2026.

The best time to visit page puts the hiking months beside the parking, the crowds and the weather, month by month, and the weather page has the forecast for the day you are here.

The lakeshore is walked all winter and it is often the best time to do it. The lake freezes hard, the crowd disappears, and the light is low all day. Wear something with grip. The packed snow on the first stretch turns to ice under a thousand pairs of boots, and the drop to the lake is right beside you.

Parks Canada advises avoiding high elevation trails from November to June because of avalanche risk. In practice that means the lakeshore and the village trails are the winter walks, and the tea house trails and everything above them are not. Moraine Lake Road is trackset for cross-country skiing, November to May, so Moraine Lake in winter is a ski, not a hike.

The winter page covers what the season looks like here, and the skating page covers the rink on the lake, which is the winter reason most people walk the shore at all.

Yes, there are grizzly bears here, and black bears too. Bear warnings, minimum group size requirements and closures are put in place through the season. Check the Parks Canada trail report on the day you walk.

Parks Canada puts bear warnings, minimum group size requirements and closures in place on these trails through the season. In practice that often means a group of four in autumn, when the bears are feeding hard on buffaloberry. The rule is enforced at the trailhead and it is not negotiable. Check the Parks Canada trail report on the morning you go, and be ready to join another party at the sign.

This page does not repeat a bear spray rule, because the data it is built from carries the Parks Canada wording on warnings, group sizes and closures and nothing else. The trail report and the sign at the trailhead carry the requirement of the day, and the sign is the one that gets enforced.

Every lakeshore trail starts within a few hundred metres of the Chateau, which the Parks Canada shuttle reaches. The shuttle page has the fares, the reservation windows and the first departure, and the parking page has what happens to the lakeshore lot in summer.

From the village you can also walk up. The Tramline is 4.8 km, 235 m of climbing and 2.5 h. The old railway grade from the village up to the lake. Bikes permitted. Louise Creek is 2.9 km, 200 m and 1.5 h. The steeper, more direct walking route from the village to the lake.

Moraine Lake Road is closed to personal vehicles year-round. The exceptions are registered guests of Moraine Lake Lodge and holders of a government-issued accessible parking placard. Everyone else arrives by Parks Canada shuttle, by licensed operator or by bicycle, and the Moraine Lake shuttle page compares the three.