Hiking Skywalk South

October 27, 2026October 27, 2026 / Maria / Leave a comment

Iceberg Lake is a popular trail in Whistler that’s ~15km round trip with 900m of elevation gain. The trail hikes up through the forest north of Whistler, exiting to a beautiful alpine meadow and a steep climb up to the lake. It’s nestled at the base of the mountain and regularly has bergy bits floating in it, making for a cold swim and scenic photos.

The first time I hiked to Iceberg Lake was in August 2022. Rather than do the there-and-back trail to the lake, we opted to do a loop along the Skywalk North trail. This does add considerable distance to the hike, but not a lot more elevation gain. We tracked just over 1000m of gain along the entire Skywalk North trail over 21km. It’s a beautiful trail and I highly recommend adding the extra kms to avoid hiking in and out on the same trail.

Adriana wanted to hike Iceberg Lake in mid September and we opted to do the Skywalk South trail this time. It’s similar to the North trail, but I’d say it’s a little more challenging. I tracked 21.5km and over 1200m of elevation gain, so there is a bit more climbing. Both trails share the main trail to Iceberg Lake, but Skywalk North is accessed from Mountain View Drive and heads North from Iceberg Lake, whereas Skywalk South is accessed from Alpine Way and heads south from Iceberg Lake. I hiked both trails clockwise, but I think I would recommend hiking Skywalk North counterclockwise instead. The direct trail to iceberg lake is the easiest way to get there, the Skywalk trails are quite steep. I prefer to hike the steepest part uphill (I have bad knees), so I recommend hiking out on the Iceberg Lake Trail.

Both trails are beautiful and it’s hard to differentiate between them. Skywalk North is a bit steeper, but has a second, warmer lake (Screaming Cat Lake) where you can swim, whereas Skywalk South has incredible views looking down to Whistler and an optional extra summit to a small peak below Rainbow Mountain (we didn’t bother). Since I already wrote about Skywalk North, I’ll focus on Skywalk South for the rest of this post.

The trailhead to Skywalk South is on Alpine Way. There’s no parking lot and you do have to park along the street, so pay close attention to the parking signs, because it’s not allowed everywhere. Be prepared to do some road walking to the trailhead which starts with a long section of trail on an old FSR that is in good condition and easy to follow. After approximately 3km, you reach a junction where you can take a left onto the Skywalk South trail, otherwise you will continue directly to Iceberg Lake. We opted to get the hardest part of the hike done early, which is why we veered left onto the Skywalk South trail. Watch out for mountain bikers in this section as they do use part of this trail as a connector.

At first, the trail is quite flat as it traverses along the backside of the mountain, but eventually it gets steeper. It’s not a technical trail and it is nice to have the shade from the trees on a hot day. After a few kilometres, you will start to pop out into some of the alpine meadows and the trail gets less steep before a final push to the high point. Once we got to the highest point, we stopped for lunch underneath the optional trail to the summit. I’d recommend pushing just a little bit further. Past the junction, there is a small pond that looked great for swimming, and past that there are fantastic views down to Whistler. I think this would be the best place to stop for a break, but we just took some photos instead.

After that, you have to hike back down towards Iceberg Lake. It’s nestled in the side of the mountain, so you can’t see it until the very end, but there’s beautiful views of the alpine. This section is a little bit tricky and hard to follow, so pay close attention. You have to hike down a boulder field, which is steep, but not too challenging. Our problem was that we ended up getting off the trail at some point and by the time we realized, it was a bit tricky to navigate back to the trail. We managed, but my advice is to keep a close eye on the GPS track. It’s a wide open area, so it seems deceptively safe, but once you get off trail, it is not easy to get back on it. It’s easy to get cliffed out, so avoid having to backtrack.

Eventually the trail merges with the Iceberg Lake trail. There’s an outhouse at the junction and a beautiful meadow along the river. Follow the river and you’ll hike back up through one final boulder field before arriving at the lake. This is a steep section as well, but the trail isn’t hard to follow.

The sun sets early over the mountain behind the lake, so if you arrive late in the day, you may be in the shade. We arrived just in time, right before the sun dropped behind the mountain, and we were able to go for a quick swim before losing the light. We still had lots of daylight, but the temperature dropped very quickly after the sun disappeared.

The only part that sucks about the Skywalk South trail is that you have to re-do the hike back to the junction. On the Skywalk North trail, it’s one continuous loop that hikes north from the lake. We walked back to the outhouse and then had a nice walk along the Iceberg Lake trail to the car. I enjoyed the section in the forest, but once we rejoined the lower part of the trail along the old road, I quickly lost interest.

It’s a long hike and I found it pretty challenging on my knees for the last section. It’s pretty boring along the road and it felt so much longer on the way down. Me and Adriana both ended up more or less hobbling off the trail for the last 3kms because our knees were so done. Since it’s such a long trail, make sure you give yourself lots of time and daylight, especially if you’re going later in the season. It took me 9 hours to do the full Skywalk North loop in 2022 and 10 hours to do the full Skywalk South loop in 2026.

Both trails are beautiful and I think they offer a lot of extra views that you won’t get if you just do the Iceberg Lake trail. I won’t be in a rush to go back now that I’ve done both, but they did offer different enough perspectives that I didn’t mind returning for the Skywalk South trail. I highly recommend both!

Favourite Hikes in Southwestern BC: Part VI

October 17, 2026October 16, 2026 / Maria / Leave a comment

I’ve lived in BC for over 12 years now. I started ranking my top 10 favourite hikes in the southwest part of the province in Fall 2016 and I have been creating a new list every two years since then. By 2024, I had 5 lists featuring a total of 50 hikes, so I narrowed it down to a special list of my overall top 10 hikes in the last decade. I’d like to continue the trend, so welcome to Part VI of this list, featuring my favourite hikes of the past two years.

10. Pump Peak

I’m surprised it’s taken 12 years for this hike to make the list, but there’s always a shorter hike close to home that never fails to surprise me. Despite hiking to Brockton Peak many times over the years, I only hiked to Pump Peak for the first time in 2026. It’s located very close to Vancouver in Mount Seymour Provincial Park and is a great option for a sunset/sunrise hike, or a short overnight. (8km, 400m gain)

9. Tricouni Berg Lake

Tricouni Berg Lake (not to be confused with Tricouni Lake or Iceberg Lake) is a newly popular hike past Squamish. It only came on my radar pretty recently, but it’s a fun day hike or overnight trip with a huge payoff at the lake. Turn off Highway 99 onto Chance Creek FSR and follow the Chance Mainline (~8.5km) as far as you can go. It’s a gravel road that most vehicles can handle. From there, park and hike up to a beautiful alpine lake nestled under Tricouni Peak. (10km, 500m gain)

8. Brandywine Mountain

Brandywine Meadows made my very first top 10 list in 2016, but having recently hiked closer to the mountain summit, I’m adding the mountain to this list. There are two trailheads for this hike, a lower one accessible by any vehicle, and an upper one accessible by 4×4. I really recommend the upper lot if you’re hiking to Brandywine Peak. This is a beautiful hike through the meadows and up and over the side of the mountain. Some wayfinding is required over the mountain and it is extremely steep, so only recommended for experienced hikers. I haven’t actually summited, but enjoyed hiking up the ridge. (10km, 800m gain)

7. Golden Ears Peak

This is another hike that I can’t believe had to wait 12 years to make my top 10 list. This is a beast of a trail, so despite its close proximity to Vancouver, it took me a long time to finally work up the nerve to hike it. Located in Golden Ears Park, this is an iconic trail that overlooks Pitt Lake and the surrounding mountains. There’s over 1500m of elevation to summit the mountain, so it’s very steep and should only be attempted by experienced hikers. You can complete it as a day hike, or reserve a campsite to spend the night at the scenic Panorama Campsite. (24km, 1600m gain)

6. San Josef Bay / Raft Cove

San Josef Bay and Raft Cove are both located on the far north coast of Vancouver Island in Cape Scott and Raft Cove Provincial Parks. Both hikes require a long drive on gravel road from Port Hardy (65km+), so they are not easy to access, but well worth the drive. Both hikes are short and visit iconic sandy beaches, but San Josef Bay is a fairly straightforward flat hike, while Raft Cove is fairly technical. San Josef Bay has stunning sea stacks that you can visit at low tide, but it has the downside of being much busier than Raft Cove. (San Jo: 6km, 0m gain; Raft Cove: 7km, 100m gain)

5.Windy Pass / Camel Pass (South Chilcotin)

South Chilcotin Provincial Park was featured on both my 2024 list and my overall best hikes list, so I was excited to return to the park in 2025, this time accessing it from Taylor Creek. I spent 3 days hiking and camping in the park, visiting both Windy Pass and Camel Pass. Camel Pass is accessible as a day hike, but you’d need to backpack in order to access Windy Pass. Both are stunning alpine features of the park. (20-40km, significant gain)

4. Trophy Meadows / Moul Falls (Wells Gray)

This is my last double feature, I promise. I know Wells Gray is a bit of a stretch to be considered Southwestern BC (it isn’t), but I always stretch the bounds on this list to pretty much anything east of the Rockies. I couldn’t bear to leave Wells Gray off the list, often known as the waterfall park, it’s incredibly scenic. My favourite waterfall was Moul Falls, which has the special feature of being able to walk behind the waterfall. But I also loved hiking to Trophy Meadows to see the wildflowers, so I had to include both on the list. (Trophy: 6km, 300m gain; Moul: 6km, 150m gain)

3. Cirque Lake

This hike was a surprise contender for the list. I often just scroll around Gaia for the fun of it, looking for interesting trails, which is how I stumbled upon Cirque Lake. It’s a remote lake in the Callaghan Valley, which can only be accessed by driving 10km down a gravel road with water bars, paddling across Callaghan Lake, and then hiking up a steep trail to Cirque Lake. It’s not a long paddle, nor is it a long hike, but added together, it is a bit of effort to get to the lake. Once there, enjoy the gorgeous alpine views. (4km RT paddle; 4km, 250m gain hike)

2. Cathedral Rim Trail

Cathedral Provincial Park is a stunning, some would say spiritual, park south of Princeton. It’s just far enough away from Vancouver that it’s not too busy and the long access into the park restricts visitors. You can’t do this hike as a day trip and I visited as a 4 day backpacking trip. When operating, you can take a shuttle into the core area of the park and complete the beautiful Rim Trail, which features a number of rock monuments, as a day hike. The shuttle wasn’t running when I visited due to a recent forest fire, which is why I needed more time to hike an extra 15km each way in and out of the park. (Rim Trail: 18km, 900m gain)

1. West Coast Trail

I finally hiked the West Coast Trail and it’s not surprising that this lands as my number 1 hike of the last two years. The West Coast Trail is one of the most iconic trails in BC and is famous for a reason. It’s a multi day coastal hike that features roaring waterfalls, pristine beaches, and stunning sea stacks and sea caves. I completed the trail over 7 days and I would only recommend it to experienced hikers. There are over 100 ladders on this trail and it is a very challenging multi-day trek. But if you’re up for the challenge, you will be rewarded! (75km)

Tricouni Berg Lake Backpacking Trip

October 10, 2026September 25, 2026 / Maria / 1 Comment

To avoid confusion, there are a lot of similarly named trails in the Squamish-Whistler area. There’s Tricouni Meadows/Lake, located north of Squamish on the Squamish River FSR at Branch 200, which can only be accessed with 4×4. There’s Iceberg Lake, located in Whistler off Mountain View Drive or Alpine Way on the Skywalk North and South trails respectively. And finally, there’s Tricouni Berg Lake, which is also located north of Squamish, but further up the Sea to Sky off Chance Creek FSR and Chance Mainline.

This trail can be accessed by 2WD or 4WD, but beware of some of the road reviews online. Our understanding when we picked this trail was that if we drove all the way to the end of Chance Mainline and took C-1300, it would be a 2km hike to the lake. It was an attractive trail because most of the elevation gain is done on the Mainline. However, this road was in a much different condition than we expected, but only along the last 3km of the road. If you want to visit the lake, the rest of Chance Mainline is pretty driveable for any vehicle. It’s gravel road, but there were several 2WD sedans on it.

It’s ~2km of driving on Chance Creek FSR (right off Highway 99), followed by 6.5km on Chance Mainline. After 6.5km, the road gets very narrow. When we visited, everyone was parked on the road at the 6.5km mark (not an actual marker, so I might not be exact). It’s pretty easy to tell because there’s an area for parking and the road obviously deteriorates after that. I recommend parking here and doing a 5km hike up to the lake.

We were feeling adventurous, so we took my friend’s jeep the whole way up. I’ve done a lot of off roading with Brandon and Victoria, but I’ve never been the driver, so take my advice with a grain of salt. You definitely need 4×4 to navigate this section (there’s tons of large, loose rock), but overall, it’s not the worst 4×4 road I’ve seen. Victoria’s opinion was that overall, it was actually a decent 4×4 road. There were just two particularly challenging sections. There’s a large washout early on the road that you might not be able to cross if you have a longer wheelspan (trucks beware), and there’s a second fairly uneven section further up where the jeep listed quite a bit to one side.

What make this road brutal was how narrow it is. It’s very overgrown and the trees were pinstriping Victoria’s jeep the entire way up. She was more or less sobbing while chanting “this is why you bought the jeep” as a mantra to make herself feel better about the trees scratching up her vehicle. We did make it all the way to the top, which felt pretty badass as we were a car of 5 women. There were several groups hiking on the road at the same time and my favourite moment was when Victoria stopped to ask a hiker coming down whether there was room for more cars at the trailhead. They looked at her like she had two heads and said, “you’re the only vehicle on this road.”

So we had a good laugh and were very proud of Victoria when she made it to the top. I wouldn’t attempt it again though. It was nice to skip ~350m of elevation gain, but it was pretty sketchy. It’s a short hike, so my recommendation is to just park at the bottom. If you do go the whole way, beware that it’s almost impossible to pass other cars on the trail. We did encounter another jeep on the way out and it was an ordeal for us to pass each other (mostly because the man in the other jeep was being an asshole).

Once you reach the “trailhead”, it’s not a long hike to the lake. We hiked through the trees before popping out in some meadows and eventually landing at the base of the lake. There are nice views looking backwards towards Whistler. Tricouni Berg Lake is nestled under Tricouni Peak, which is gorgeous. I did the Tricouni Meadows hike a few years ago, which is the trail to do if you want to actually hike Tricouni Peak. It’s on the opposite side of Tricouni Berg Lake, so it was cool to see the peak from both sides. It also reminded me of Cirque Lake, which is another hike I did last year at Callaghan. So overall, some really beautiful lakes in this region.

There were a couple of groups of day hikers, but not a lot of campers. Besides our group of 5 women, there were only two other couples staying overnight. We had nice weather on the way up, since it was mid-August, but there were thunderstorms in the forecast for overnight, which I think scared a lot of people away. Please note that if you decide to camp here, it is wild camping. You’re outside of any parks and there are no facilities. You will have to dig a cathole when you poop and you should plan to store your food in a bear vault or bear bag. There are a few trees around, but they are typical alpine trees, from which is it very challenging to do a proper bear hang.

The lake is stunning. After setting up our tents, we all went for a swim. I was expecting the water to be very cold, which it was, but not the numbing kind of cold. I was able to adjust to the temperature and spent the better part of a half hour in the water with Emily and Miranda. You could explore around the alpine if you wanted, but we were mostly interested in hanging out and spent the afternoon chilling by the lake. We set up a tarp in case it rained, but it stayed dry until we were ready to go to bed.

We were all taking care of our bear vaults and bear bags when things got interesting. One of the couples had been preparing their dinner when the guy accidentally sliced open his arm with a box cutter (we don’t know why he was using a box cutter). They were only 20 years old and I’m going to use them as a cautionary tale for being prepared. They didn’t have a first aid kit, so they approached us to see if we did (we had 4). He was quite literally bleeding all over the ground and himself. It wasn’t a deadly bleed, but it was a nasty cut (he sliced parallel to his arm leaving a flap) and he needed to get the bleeding under control. We got him to sit down and Miranda applied pressure until it started to clot and we bandaged him up with a lot of gauze pads and rolls. I’ve been carrying an large abdominal gauze pad around for 10 years that I finally got to use.

Of course, it started to rain while we were helping him, so we moved him under the tarp, got the wound cleaned, and gave him some painkillers. He definitely needed stitches and we told him to go to Squamish General in the morning. We learned that he also didn’t have a rain jacket or a bear vault. Miranda was the true MVP and gave him her emergency poncho and helped them hang their food on one of the limited trees. Then we all went to bed because it was properly dark and the thunderstorm had started.

If you live in the lower mainland, you may recall a particularly impressive thunderstorm that rolled through on Aug. 22nd. There were literally thousands of lightning strikes and we were all camped in tents. Fortunately, the lightning itself didn’t seem to be that close (we counted between the thunder), but it did make for a really interesting night. I think if the lightning had been closer, I would have been scared, but because I could tell it was further away, I enjoyed lying in the tent and watching the flashes and listening to the thunder. It went on for hours and eventually I put my earplugs in so that I could fall asleep.

We slept later than normal, waiting for the rain to peter out. Eventually it did and we crawled out of our tents to see that the tarp had survived the storm. The rain had stopped, but the clouds were very low and we could barely see the lake, much less the mountains. We had a lazy morning and enjoyed breakfast before eventually packing up camp. The clouds lifted and we got a decent view on the way out.

It didn’t take long to hike out and we had fun driving back along the 4×4 road. I spotted for Victoria, running ahead to remove rogue rocks when needed and pointing on the best lines to drive. It was fun. I hope to get my own 4×4 in the next couple of years, so I try and learn what I can from Victoria and Brandon. We finally popped out of the challenging section and were cruising along the gravel road when we spotted a broken down sedan with our friends from the night before. In addition to forgetting a first aid kit and a rain jacket, they’d also knowingly driven onto the FSR with an unreliable car battery. They definitely learned a lot of lessons on this trip, but please don’t be like them.

We tried to give them a boost, but their battery was really dead and he still needed stitches, so we ended up riding all 7 of us in the jeep to get to the bottom of the FSR, where I had parked my car. Me, Emily, and Miranda jumped back in my Tucson, and Victoria and Adriana dropped the couple at the Squamish Hospital. They called for a tow, but (as I learned in Cape Scott in 2020) BCAA doesn’t cover you on FSRs. They were quoted $1500 for a tow, so he ended up calling his Dad, who drove out a new battery for him from Vancouver, which they replaced after he got stitches. So he was fine in the end, but had we not been there, it probably would have been a messy night since his backup plan was going to be to wrap a roll of toilet paper around his arm.

Anyways, we had a great time at the lake, but our main takeaway was that it always pays to be prepared!