Crandell Loop – Waterton Lakes National Park

The trail around Crandell Mountain in Waterton Lakes National Park can be accessed from three different trailheads. It is mountain bike friendly and passes by a small and beautiful lake.

The trailhead off of the Akamina Parkway is one of the more popular trailheads and is a short one mile to the lake. It comes to a little pass of sorts and drops down into the basin where the lake is. The lake has two access points via trail. It’s a smaller lake, surrounded by trees on three sides, but is open on the northern side with a large beach. The trail continues on north to the auto campground which is the other more popular access.

The lesser traveled trail starts out at the visitor’s center and follows the Akamina Parkway in the Cameron Creek drainage about four miles until it meets up with the spur trail that goes to the Akamina Parkway trailhead. This can be one big long loop if you take the Blakiston Creek trail from the Crandell auto campground as it loops back to the visitor’s center.

The trek is a primarily a treed walk, but not suffocatingly so. There are many views that pop out from time to time and the lake is a nice stop along the way. It’s a very nice trail for birding but, because of the lack of more open meadows and views, I wouldn’t expect to see too many larger animals.

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