🏔 Andy McKay

The Rockwall is a hike in Kootenay National Park and is one of the most beautiful hikes I've done. I learned about it from Taryn who said that the Rockwall "has the best effort to reward ratio of all the backpacking trips in BC" and based on my experience, I have to agree.

Rockwall isn't a specific trail, but a collection of a few trails and campsites. You'll need to book with Parks Canada and probably do it well in advance. We booked our campsites in January 2025 the day reservations opened, apparently it can book out quickly. With multiple trails and entrances, you really can choose which bits you want to do - we choose to do Helmet Falls to Floe Lake.

We picked a week in September, partly because of our own personal schedules, but also because we thought it might be quieter once schools have returned and the larches might have started to change colours. Fortunately we got amazing September weather for the week we were there, but I imagine it could have been cold if the weather had changed.

Day 1: Highway 👉 Helmet Falls

We started out at the Paint Pots car park and went in towards Helmet Falls. The trail gains over 570m as you head up towards Helmet Falls. Past Paint Pots, the trail goes up by a creek and is quite a lovely trail.

The payoff occurs in the last km or so as you approach the campsite. To the west of the campsite is a huge wall of rock (not the rock wall) with a waterfall coming over the middle of it. It's an amazing spot as you feel like you are surrounded by a huge rock wall, it wraps around more than 180 degrees of the campsite.

We walked up and stood near the base of the waterfall and watched mountain goats in the distance make their way along a cliff face. Truly a stunning start and it only got better.

Day 2: Helmet Falls 👉 Numa Creek

The next day we climb up away from Helmet Falls and across the west side of the Rockwall. The Rockwall is just as described, a huge wall of rock that juts out to the west, looking out over meadows, larches and lakes. Multiple times I thought of The Wall in the Game of Thrones, just nicer.

The view was amazing and the trail just keeps getting better as the mountains on the west side keep changing as you progress along the trail. Most hikers seem to stop at Tumbling Creek Campground, but we powered on across Tumbling pass and onto Numa Creek. Tumbling Pass gives you views of amazing glaciers and more steep mountains.

Numa Creek is another one of those campsites down in the valley between mountains next to creek. It's a long steep downhill into the creek. The campsite is large and in nice sheltered spot - where the sun goes behind the mountains early and rises late in the morning.

Day 3: Numa Creek 👉 Floe Lake

This was a pretty short day, with a consistent climb up to Numa pass. The pass marks the highest elevation on the trail, at ~2,335m and gives you an amazing view back along the valley the way you came.

Floe Lake is probably one of the most beautiful spots I've camped at. Right by the lake with huge mountains looming above. Floe Lake is used as a day hike from the highway, so it did get a little busy around lunchtime, but those groups soon left.

The lake is cold, but I was still able to get a quick swim in, before having a nice afternoon sunbathe and relax in the hammock.

Day 3: Floe Lake 👉 Highway

Sunrise on Floe Lake was just spectacular in the morning, just stunning. The sun came up from the west, peeked over the mountain and for about 15 minutes cast an amazing orange glow across Floe mountain. A campsite with a great sunrise makes me so happy.

Heading out of Floe Lake to the highway is pretty much straight downhill and at 10k represents a reasonably easy way out of the Rockwall hike.

Summary

This hike was one of the most spectacular that I've done. It was a couple of days after Skyline. Whilst I mentioned that I would probably not drive 9 hours to do Skyline alone, I would drive easily 9 hours to do Rockwall.

The pace was good, we had a long day in the sun at Floe Lake because that section was a little short, but it was an amazing place to hang out. If it was raining perhaps less so. At my current fitness it felt like a good pace that meant I could enjoy the amazing scenery.

After Skyline and Rockwall I promised myself that I would try and spend at least two weeks next year backpacking in this part of the world. It's an amazing area and has so many trails still to do.