Top 10 Unbeatable Trails in Southwestern BC

December 26, 2024November 19, 2024 / Maria / Leave a comment

I’ve been living in British Columbia for almost 11 years now. Every 2 years I compile a list of my top 10 favourite hikes in Southwestern BC during that period. This means that I have almost 300 hikes in my overall hiking log and 50 hikes in my “favourites” list. I decided to create one more ultimate top 10 list using only the trails from my last 5 compilation posts (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5). Most of these are very well known hikes, with good reason, though there are a few slightly lesser known trails. After a decade living on the West Coast, these are the trails that I’ll never stop recommending!

#10 Howe Sound Crest Trail

The Howe Sound Crest Trail is a quintessential hike located just outside of the lower mainland. It is a very challenging hike, but iconic due to its proximity to the city and the towering Lions mountains. The hike leaves from the top of Cypress Mountain and hikes 30km of ridgeline parallel to Howe Sound, ending at Porteau Cove. It can be done in a single day as a trail run, but it’s a very technical and challenging hike and I recommend at minimum, 1 night on the trail (I did 2 nights). The trail passes through the Lions and then hikes up and down several peaks to the halfway point at Magnesia Meadows. From there, you can summit both Mount Harvey and Mount Brunswick, before continuing back in the forest to campsites at Brunswick Lake and Deeks Lake. It’s a beautiful trail, but there is a lot of elevation gain and it should not be underestimated. (30km, 1500m elevation gain, 2-3 days)

#9 South Chilcotin

There are tons of hiking trails available in South Chilcotin Provincial Park and it is a great place to escape the crowds. Day hiking definitely isn’t possible here, but if you really want to escape out of the city and spend an extended period of time in nature, this is a great choice. The route I took involved hiking into the park along the Tyaughton Creek Trail and doing a loop around the park. Highlights included hiking up to the top of Lorna Pass and over Deer Pass. There are some beautiful lakes on the south side of the park. I did a 90km route over 6 days and I’m already dying to go back and explore more of the park. (30-90km, 2-6 days)

#8 Cheam Peak

Camping isn’t allowed on Cheam Peak, so this hike can only be done as a day hike. It’s extremely popular, but notoriously difficult to access. 4WD and high clearance are definitely required to get to the trailhead, so don’t even try to take a small vehicle up there. There are a lot of water bars and they start early, so don’t try and park on the road either as it will only create more barriers. But if you can find a ride to the top, this is a truly iconic hike in the Fraser Valley. The entire hike is in the alpine and you start by hiking into a grassy meadow before a steep slog up the mountain to the top. From the top, you can see the entire Fraser Valley on one side and the sweeping backcountry on the other. I’ve done this one twice and always enjoy it, despite the crowds. (10km, 650m elevation gain, 1 day)

#7 Mount Price

Mount Price is the secret version of Panorama Ridge. I haven’t done this hike since 2018, so it may have gotten more popular since then, but when I visited, it was empty compared to the crowds in the rest of the park. Similar to Panorama Ridge, this trail is located in Garibaldi Provincial Park and can be completed in a day, but is best done overnight at the lake. While the Panorama Ridge trail goes up the north side of Garibaldi Lake, the Mount Price Trail goes up the south side. You walk along the lake doing some light bushwacking, before you hit a large boulder field that you have to scramble up to the large flat top of Mount Price. From there, you can admire the Garibaldi backcountry in every direction! Enjoy the gatorade blue hues of Garibaldi Lake, the towering glacial peaks of Mount garibaldi, and the iconic Black Tusk, home of the Thunderbird. (29km, 1400m elevation gain, 1-3 days)

#6 Russet Lake

Mount Price is only one of many breathtaking hikes in Garibaldi Provincial Park. Another gorgeous hike can be found along the High Note and Musical Bumps trail to Russet Lake. In theory, this could be done as a day hike, but I really recommend it as an overnight hike due to the length and late opening time of the gondola. The Russet Lake trail starts in Whistler and can be accessed from either the top of Peak Chair (which comes with a hefty price tag, but is worth it in my opinion), or from the base of the mountain along the Singing Pass Trail. The Singing Pass Trail is free, but is mostly in the trees and involves a lot of elevation gain. The route from Peak Chair follows the High Note Trail to Flute Summit, before merging with the Musical Bumps Trail. The entire trail is in the alpine and breath-takingly gorgeous, but it does involve doing several mini summits, so it is still a very tiring trail. It’s highly worth the payout! (24km, 550m elevation gain, 2 days)

#5 Panorama Ridge

I’m just realizing how many of the hikes on this list are in Garibaldi Park! I don’t think this hike needs any introduction. Panorama is the crown jewel hike of Garibaldi and one of the most iconic hikes in the entire province. I admit that I am a bit resentful of this hike because of the huge number of people it attracts, but I’ve still made the trek up there on more than one occasion to admire the views. Lots of people do it as a big day hike, but I’ve always camped at the lake. My preferred way to visit Panorama Ridge is to thru hike from Garibaldi Lake to Helm Creek and stop at Panorama Ridge along the way. Helm Creek is another stunning area of the park and makes for a fantastic thru hike. If you want to avoid some of the crowds, you could enter the park from the Cheakamus Lake entrance and day hike Helm Creek, since most people come via the Rubble Creek entrance. (30km, 1500m elevation gain, 1-3 days)

#4 Heather Trail

We’ve almost concluded the Garibaldi Park hikes, so let’s talk about my other favourite park, E.C. Manning Provincial Park. I absolutely adore Manning Park, which has always attracted less visitors than Garibaldi Park, but the crowds are definitely increasing in recent years, especially in the Fall on the Frosty Mountain Trail. But the Heather Trail is where I’d rather spend my time. If you just want to do a day hike, drive to the top of Blackwall Road and hike out and back to 3 Brothers Mountain, which captures a lot of the highlights of the trail. You do most of the elevation gain in the car, so most of the hike is located in the alpine and is very well known for its alpine wildflowers. But I like to extend the trip by backpacking the Heather Trail, which continues further to Nicomen Lake. From Nicomen, you can turn around and hike back to your car, or continue on the Grainger Creek Trail and thru hike to Cayuse Flats, which is what I did. (38-42km, 1000m elevation gain, 2-3 days)

#3 Skyline II Trail

As much as I love the Heather Trail, the Skyline II Trail is my favourite trail in Manning Park! It gets less crowds than the Heather Trail, but it is becoming more popular in recent years. If you just want to do a day hike, follow the trail up to Snow Camp Mountain and back, which features a breaktaking viewpoint before Despair Pass, and beautiful alpine meadows after the pass. The most iconic mountain on this trail is Hozomeen Mountain, which is located just across the border. My preferred trip is to backpack to Mowich Camp and then do a day hike to Hozomeen Ridge on the second day. I returned to my car along the same route, but you can thru hike the Skyline II Trail down the other side of the mountain into Skagit Valley Provincial Park if you have two cars. (17-40km, 500m elevation gain, 1-3 days)

#2 Elfin Lakes

Elfin Lakes is the last hike on my list from Garibaldi Park. It’s also a very popular hike, but not on the same level as Panorama Ridge. That said, of all the trails in Garibaldi Park, this one is by far my favourite and I keep returning to it year after year (I think I’ve been up there 7 times now)! This trail can be done as an overnight or a day hike, in all seasons (although there is some avalanche risk in the winter). You can either tent or stay in the shared hut. The reason I love this hike is because the views from the tent are absolutely phenomenal and it’s great for stargazing. Plus, there are several options for day hikes from the campsite and I’ve had a lot of fun exploring the Gargoyles, Opal Cone, and Mamquam Lake over the years. I never get tired of this hike! (22-42km, 600m elevation gain, 1-3 days)

#1 Sunshine Coast Trail

The Sunshine Coast Trail will always top my list and is a very sentimental trail to me. It’s a 180km trail that can be done in sections or as one large thru hike. I did it in 2 sections in 2022. I did the first 50km with my sister, and the second 130km alone. It remains the only trail I’ve ever backpacked on my own. The trail has a large system of huts that you can stay in and is maintained by a committed network of volunteers. While the trail does have a number of gorgeous viewpoints, it is a lot of forest walking. I can’t quite pinpoint what is so special about this trail, I think it’s a combination of all the elements of the experience, but it will always have a special place in my heart. The highlights for me included Sarah Point, Manzanita Bluff, Appleton Canyon, Inland Lake, Tin Hat Mountain, Walt Hill, Rainy Day Lake, and Fairview Bay. So basically, the entire trail! (180km, 7-12 days)

Jade Lake Backpacking Trip

December 18, 2024December 20, 2024 / Maria / 1 Comment

After a rainy night at Eva Lake, we packed our bags to continue on to Jade Lake. There’s a short hike back to a junction where you can do a detour down to Miller Lake. Every lake in this park is gorgeous and it’s definitely worth the extra 1km to hike to Miller Lake. The clouds were starting to lift and we got some cool views of the vibrant blue water before heading onwards. I really wanted to swim in Eva and Miller Lakes, but I was pretty chilled from the rain, so I’ll have to return and swim in those lakes one day!

The trail to Jade Lake is absolutely phenomenal. It’s ~7km from Eva to Jade, including the side trail to Miller. Once leaving Miller Lake, you hike back to the junction and then continue up to the alpine by crossing the edge of Miller Lake along the mountainside. After a bit of uphill, you reach the alpine and cross through numerous meadows filled with wildflowers. Then there’s a steeper uphill and you eventually reach the top of the pass. I’m not sure the technical name of the pass, but we called it Jade Pass.

From Jade Pass, there are amazing views of the alpine and surrounding mountains looking down on Jade Lake. I’m sure this park is really beautiful on a clear, blue sky day, but I honestly feel lucky that we got to visit it on a cloudy day. The clouds were large and dynamic, constantly moving around the landscape, revealing the mountain range beyond. It was a very cool experience. We stopped for lunch at the top of the pass to enjoy the view. There were quite a few more day hikers around since it was a Saturday, but we didn’t see anyone heading down to the lake.

Jade Lake is stunning and absolutely worth the hike down from the pass, but I can understand why a lot of day hikers don’t do it. It adds another 2km each way, as well as 200m of elevation gain. No one wants to hike down there, just to have to turn around and hike back up. Before we left, I hiked up a little further to a nearby peak for some extra photos, before shouldering my pack again for the hike to the valley. You’re in the alpine for most of the hike down, so it’s very barren, but the views are incredible. We saw a few pikas and marmots along the way, so we intentionally kept a slow pace to just enjoy the experience.

Just before you reach the lake, you enter back into the sub-alpine and continue through the trees. There’s 4 tent sites at Jade Lake and I personally think we ended up with the best site, which overlooks the lake. However, the real star of the show at Jade Lake is the outhouse. The outhouse is elevated and built right on the rock overlooking the mountains. There’s no door, so you can sit on the toilet and enjoy the view to your heart’s content!

But my first order of business was to finally go for a swim! The lake was cold (of course), but it was a lot warmer than I was expecting for an alpine lake. I was able to stay in for a while and really enjoyed a good swim. Brandon did his customary dip and returned to the tent, but since there was no one else around, I did a quick skinny dip before drying off.

https://flic.kr/p/2qozar5

The main lake where the campsite is, is actually called Upper Jade Lake. There’s a lower lake a few hundred metres away, but there’s no trail to access it. You can almost see it from the campsite and we were feeling adventurous, so we decided to go on a little bushwacking adventure. We approached from the north side of the creek running between the two lakes. It’s a little boggy in some areas, but we were able to find our way down relatively easy. It’s a nice view, but we didn’t stay long because it was very buggy and we hadn’t brought the thermacell!

We returned to the upper lake and had our supper along the lake shore (with thermacell this time). It was a really nice evening, but we decided to head to bed early to get a headstart on the return trip. It got pretty cold and dewy overnight and the moon was very bright, so we didn’t see many stars.

We got up around 6am, just as the sun was rising over the mountains, which turned the mountain behind the lake golden. It was really beautiful and we were the only people awake to enjoy it. In fact, when we started hiking just before 8am, we were still the only people up. It is a pretty big climb to the top of the pass, so I’m glad we got up early. The sun was hidden behind a few clouds and it stayed that way the entire time we were climbing, which was awesome. It took us about an hour and the sun finally peaked out just as we reached the top of the pass.

The real benefit of getting up so early though was the wildlife. We saw a few marmots and pikas the previous day, but the area was absolutely crawling with them on our final morning! I guess they get up and enjoy the views early when it’s cool and before the crowds show up. We spent a lot of time watching them around the rocks.

We had the pass entirely to ourselves, as well as the hike back through the alpine to Miller Lake. We didn’t encounter a single person until a few kilometres past the junction to Eva Lake. I wonder if the gate to the parkway opens at a specific time, because as soon as we passed the first group of hikers, it was a steady stream of people the rest of the day. Arguably, it was the nicest day of our trip, so we got to enjoy the nice views along the trail that we’d completely missed on the way in.

It was 10.5km back to the parking lot from Jade Lake and we didn’t take any breaks. We continued at a pretty solid pace because we still had to drive all the way back to Vancouver on the same day. It’s not really ideal, but there was enough time for it. We got back to the car around noon and the parking lot looked very different from when we had started in the pouring rain.

We were a bit too early for the good restaurants in Revelstoke, so we decided to have lunch in Salmon Arm so that we could get bison burgers. They were just okay, but we made a stop to Fruit World in Sicamous along the way (which we discovered on our trip last year). We stocked up on fresh fruits and veggies and enjoyed an ice cream cone. Otherwise, it was a long drive back to Vancouver. But in my opinion, it was worth it and I would totally do the same trip again.

I’m glad we had the ranger cabin at Eva Lake on our rainy day, if I could do the trip again in nice weather, I would probably reverse it and do Eva Lake on the second day so that I could have a shorter distance to hike on the way out. The permits are released really early in the year (March) for the entire season, so you have to be on the ball with bookings if you want to go on a weekend. But if you get the chance, this is a beautiful hike in what is in my opinion, a bit of an under-hyped National Park.

Eva Lake Backpacking Trip

December 11, 2024December 20, 2024 / Maria / 2 Comments

I’ve driven through Mount Revelstoke National Park many times, but I’ve never actually done any of the attractions in the park. It’s a pretty large park, but a lot of the wilderness is inaccessible. I think most visitors drive up the Meadows in the Sky Parkway to the top of the mountain and do some short hikes through the meadows, without exploring deeper into the backcountry.

Eva and Jade Lakes entered my radar over the past few years when I’ve been booking permits in the Rockies, and I impulsively decided to purchase tenting permits for 2 nights in August at the start of the season. You can visit both Eva and Jade Lakes as a day trip, but it’s just over 20km, so it makes for a big day. There were a fair amount of day hikers in the park when the weather was nice, but I think most people either just visit Eva Lake, or only hike as far as the top of the pass on the way to Jade Lake (not wanting to hike up and down the pass to the lake on the same day).

If you have the time, I’d definitely recommend going overnight. There’s only 4 tent pad sites at each lake, so it’s a really special experience when the crowds thin out and you have the National Park mostly to yourself for the evening. My permits were for Eva Lake on a Friday Night and Jade Lake on Saturday Night.

This did make for a very big trip out of Vancouver though. Brandon and I took Friday off and left Vancouver right after work on Thursday. Leaving on Thursday helped a lot with the traffic and it was pretty smooth sailing leaving the city. We stopped once for a pee break and made it to Costco in Kamloops just before closing to fill up the gas tank. It would be nice to book a hotel in Kamloops, but we’ve entered our BC Rec Sites era and decided to hit up one of the many free provincial rec sites instead!

The Harper Lake Rec Site suited our needs best and we drove in a long gravel road in the dark to get to the site. I could imagine that this might be a bit of a party site on the weekends, but it was completely empty on a Thursday night and we quickly set up the tent and went to bed. We were pleasantly surprised with the view in the morning – there’s a gorgeous lake with a little dock – but we didn’t have much time to enjoy it. We took off again early to get to Revelstoke to start our hike.

We stopped in the town of Revelstoke to pick up some sandwiches for lunch, and then drove to the top of Meadows in the Sky Parkway. Another reason I’m glad we started on Friday is that we were easily able to find parking. There’s not very much space in the top parking lot and when we returned to the car on Sunday, there was a steady stream of cars parking along the edge of the road. We arrived around noon and didn’t have any trouble.

But there was another contributing factor to the lack of crowds. As we climbed up the mountain, it slowly started to rain, and by the time we parked the car, it had escalated to a full on torrential downpour. I’ve never been less excited to start a hike. I don’t mind hiking out in the rain, but it’s a real bummer starting a hike in the rain. If we hadn’t driven 6 hours to get there, I may have said, “let’s try again next year”. We reminded ourselves that it was supposed to be much nicer the next two days, and slowly prepared ourselves for the hike.

We ate lunch in the car to postpone the inevitable, and then finally set forth in our full rain gear. My rain gear worked great, as did my boots, but it’s not a particularly enjoyable experience. It’s ~1km uphill from the parking lot to the top of the mountain, where there are a ton of other alpine meadow trails to enjoy (the “Meadows in the Sky” Parkway is very aptly named). The rain did lighten up after a while, but it was still extremely cloudy and we didn’t see any views. This resulted in us making pretty quick time along the 7km trail to Eva Lake and we arrived in the mid afternoon.

I’m so glad I picked Eva Lake for our first night! While we didn’t get to enjoy any of the views from Eva Lake, this campsite does have a small Ranger cabin that is over 100 years old. This was an absolute godsend on a rainy day! We had brought a tarp, but it was so lovely to be able to hang out in the cabin all evening rather than have to tough it out in the cold.

Like I said, there’s only 4 tent sites, and with the rain, the lake was pretty empty. There was one solo female camper from Salmon Arm already there when we arrived, as well as a small family. A group of 3 women showed up later in the evening and we all hung out in the cabin getting to know each other and hoping the rain would let up. We hung everything up to dry, but it was so humid everything remained pretty damp. It never really stopped raining, but it made for a cozy evening and reminded me a lot of the trip Brandon and I made to Lake O’Hara last year, where we spent the better part of the day sheltering in the O’Hara store while it poured and poured.

Fortunately, things improved the following morning. It was still completely clouded in when we woke up, but the rain had finally moved on overnight. We didn’t have too much hiking ahead of us, so we had a lazy start and enjoyed our breakfast by the lake. The clouds were moving around a lot and creating cool shapes. We got a few glimpses of the mountains overshadowing the lake, but never got a view of the mountains looking out from the lake. From other photos, it looks like it’s an amazing view, so something to come back for another time! But we did enjoy the 1km walk that’s available around the edge of the Lake. Check back next week to hear about the second part of our trip to Jade Lake!