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!