by Duane Radford

Created on: April 27, 2008

Where Eagles Soar - Crypt Lake Hike, Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada

Crypt Lake - what a mix: outstanding mountain scenery, a remote alpine lake, big trout - and for added measure one of the top hikes in Canada. How could I go wrong!

The Crypt Lake trail is arguably one of the most scenic in Waterton Lakes National
Park - where there are many outstanding trails - and is rated in the top 10 in Canada by Elliot Katz, author of the book on The Complete Guide To Walking In Canada (Firefly Books, 2001), in a country with many sensational hiking trails.

Some of the other trails that share this distinguished rating are the Skyline Trail in Cape Breton Highlands National Park, Nova Scotia; the West Coast Trail, Pacific Rim National Park, British Columbia; and the Chilkoot Pass, the Yukon from Skagway, Alaska to Bennett, British Columbia all national treasures in their own right.

Waterton Park is located in southwestern Alberta in the majestic Canadian Rockies just north of Glacier National Park, in Montana. Crypt Lake is remote. It's a hard-to-reach lake which straddles the border with the United States, with a very challenging and physically demanding trail. Hikers must crawl through a natural tunnel on the face of a steep mountainside and later edge their way alongside a cliff where a fall would be totally unforgiving. There's a steady uphill climb, without any level ground, from Waterton Lake to Crypt Lake for about 5.5 miles. Don't forget your water bottles!

The Crypt Lake trail begins on the shore of Waterton Lake across from the Waterton town site and rises 2207 feet to Crypt Lake, which is at an elevation of 6475 feet. The lake is 39 acres in size and was stocked many years ago with cutthroat trout. It was the trout that got my interest up as a friend had mentioned seeing some lunkers cruising the shallows on an earlier trip.

I picked a warm day in August to make the hike as the thunder shower season is usually over by this time of the year; there's nothing like a rainstorm to take the edge off a hike in the Canadian Rockies.

With any luck the trout would be biting to cap off what was shaping up to be a memorable hike.

My son, Myles, and I caught the first available boat ride at 8:00 am for the short ferry ride across Waterton Lake to the trail head at Crypt Landing, along with a few other eager hikers. None of them had any fishing rods so it appeared there wouldn't be any competition for the big trout.

After we docked the boat, the captain reminded us

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