Trail stats
Distance: 13 KM to Helen Lake or 16 KM to Cirque Peak (out-and-back)
Elevation gain: 585m to Helen Lake or 1129m to Cirque Peak
Time needed: 5-6 hours
Difficulty level: Difficult
Parking: Yes, the Helen Lake trail parking lot
Getting to the trailhead
The trail begins at the Helen Lake parking lot located across from Bow Lake. There are several spaces but these presumably fill up quickly on a good day. We did this hike on a rainy morning in September, still arriving early to find a handful of cars parked up. There are two toilets at the trailhead along with a map that illustrates the trail to Helen Lake.
The Trail
The trail to Helen Lake takes a nice route through the forest, crossing some small streams and remaining sheltered for quite some time, which was lucky for us as it was raining quite a bit. There is a steady elevation gain the whole way up, so it does require relative effort. Once you come out of the trees, there are some rocks to the left where you can go and have a nice look at Bow Lake that’s just across the road.
The remaining path to Helen Lake is a beautiful, open alpine meadow with wildflowers and marmots scurrying around. It took us an hour and 30 minutes to reach the lake where we stopped for some food. The lake itself is nice, but it’s nothing extraordinary. If you were planning on just hiking to Helen Lake, I recommend you carry on to the right side of the lake where you will find some large rocks that you can get to which would be a better place to admire the scenery rather than just sitting at the lake.
From here, the trail does not let up so be prepared for a serious uphill climb. Helen Lake sits at 2400m which is a significant elevation. You may find yourself short of breath if you are not used to higher altitudes. The path is easy to follow as it ascends up a sandy ridge that eventually turns into loose scree.
Take a moment here to look back down at Helen Lake, where you can also see the beautiful Bow Lake and Bow Valley. To get to the summit from here, it is very steep and you are essentially climbing up a pile of small loose rocks with no clear track!
Experienced scramblers call this “easy”, but I had never really scrambled or hiked on this type of terrain before so I found it challenging, especially being at such a height. Some of the rocks I thought were solid enough to support my weight quickly fell out beneath my feet causing a domino effect on the smaller rocks around me. It took us an hour and 25 minutes to get to the top. We didn’t summit as honestly I was too scared to climb the big boulder especially given the poor weather. Because of the rain, the rocks were slippery so we decided to sit at 2950m and admire the view that I genuinely don’t have a big enough vocabulary to describe. We could count almost 20 lakes and were surrounded by peaks galore. It is one of the best views I have ever witnessed on any hike.
Then of course, we had to somehow make it back down which was even more unnerving than going up! You go back the same way and once you’re back to the flat rocks above Helen Lake, it’s easy the rest of the way down.
Tips / Advice
Avoid on a busy day if possible! For the Cirque Peak scramble, there were two people ahead of us and two others behind. We allowed the two behind to pass us out and even though they did so skillfully, several rocks came tumbling down toward us. Picking which rocks to stand on is a game of chance, it would be even more of a challenge if there were a lot of people around causing more and more rocks to fall.
My clothes and body got incredibly dusty on the scramble up and down to Cirque Peak so bring some wipes and a change of clothes.
The Helen Lake trail itself is nice but there are definitely better ones to do in Banff. However, Cirque Peak is definitely one of the best views I’ve ever witnessed on any trail so I can’t recommend it enough!
