I’ve featured a lot of hikes on this blog and while I try to write about all kinds of hikes, I have a tendency to focus on my big, backcountry trips. But I believe hiking is for everyone and I’ve done lots of great, short, easy hikes that I want to feature in this post. Just keep in mind that no matter where you’re hiking or how short the hike is – always be prepared. Check out my post on personal safety to learn more about trip planning and the 10 essentials.
Without further ado, here are all my favourite short hikes by region:
Sea to Sky
Brandywine Falls (1km, 0m gain) – Located right on the Sea to Sky highway before you get to Whistler. Walk out to this amazing waterfall viewpoint! You can extend the hike down to the bottom of the falls, but wayfinding skills are required as it’s not well marked.
Brohm Lake (4km, 100m gain) – Located just past Squamish on the Sea to Sky highway. Do the circuit around the lake, or extend the hike up to Tantalus Lookout or Brohm Interpretive Forest. A great place for swimming in the summer.
Alice Lake (1.5km, 0m gain) – Located in Alice Lake Provincial Park, just past Squamish. Hang out at the day use area and go for a stroll around the lake. Great for swimming in the summer.
North Shore
Lighthouse Park (6km, 0m gain) – Located down by the water in West Van, make your own adventure in this park! Hike to the lighthouse and hang out on the rocks or explore the many forested nature trails.
Bowen Island Lookout (4km, 110m gain) – Located in Cypress Provincial Park, you can do this trail all year, just use snowshoes in the winter. The trail is a little steep, but has amazing views of Howe Sound and Bowen Island.
Dog Mountain (5km, 0m gain) – Located in Seymour Provincial Park, this is another hike that can be done in summer or winter. The trail has great views of the city – add a kilometre and hike to Dinkey Peak on the way down for mountain views.
Tri-City Area
Belcarra Regional Park (5km, 0m gain) – There are two hike options in Belcarra: Jug Island and Burns Point, which leave in opposite directions from the parking lot. Both are 5km, but Burns Point is the easier hike. Jug Island hikes up and down while Burns Point follows the coast.
Crystal Falls (7km, 0m gain) – Located in Coquitlam, this is one of the longer hikes on the list, but it’s totally flat and has rewarding views of the falls at the end! Wear appropriate shoes – this one can be muddy!
Minnekhada Park (4km, 100m gain) – Located near Pitt River in Coquitlam, there are two lake loops that are ~4km each, or if you’d like more of a challenge, hike 7km up to High Knoll for a view of the valley. Great for birdwatching.
Heading East
Gold Creek East: Lower Falls (5.5km, 0m gain) – Located in Golden Ears Park, it’s a beautiful, flat hike along the river to Lower Falls. Extend the hike by continuing on to Viewpoint Beach.
Bridal Veil Falls (1km, 50m gain) – Located just off Highway 1 past Chilliwack, a short hike to a huge waterfall cascading down over the rocks!
Paintbrush Trail (3km, 0m gain) – Located in Manning Park, it’s a bit of a drive, but Paintbrush Trail has the most amazing views of the surrounding mountains and at the right time of year, is bursting with beautiful alpine wildflowers.
Coastal and Islands
Bowen Island Sea Walk Trail (2km, 0m gain) – Located at the Southwest end of Bowen Island, this short there-and-back hike to Cape Roger Curtis Lighthouse has beautiful ocean views.
Smugglers Cove (3km, 0m gain) – Located on the Sunshine Coast, Smuggler’s Cove is a beautiful coastal trail that winds through wetland and rocky coast outside Halfmoon Bay.
Mount Norman (2.5km, 200m gain) – Located on South Pender Island, Mount Norman is the steepest hike on the list, but has beautiful views of the Gulf Islands. Extend the hike to Beaumont Campsite (6km) to make this a truly coastal hike.
Vancouver Island
Mystic Beach (4km, 65m gain) – Located past Sooke on the far south of the Island, this is a great way to sample one of the highlights of the Juan de Fuca Marine Trail. Hike through the woods to a beautiful sandy beach.
Little Qualicum Falls (3km, 65m gain) – Located just off the Alberni Highway in Little Qualicum Falls Park, this short loop takes you along the river to several beautiful waterfalls!
Tonquin Beach Trail (3km, 65m gain) – Located in Tofino, Tonquin Beach is a great place to watch the sun set, hang out on the golden sands, fish, or have a campfire. Just bring your headlamp for the hike back.
I know I said I was done with writing about Manning Park, but in addition to doing day snowshoe trips in the park, I have also snow camped there, so I want to share about that adventure too!
It’s been a challenging year for everyone with COVID-19 and our limited ability to travel and see friends. Fortunately the outdoors is a relatively safe space to spend time with friends, so we decided to go on our annual snow camping adventure. We made some notable changes – we all drove separately, prepared our own meals, and brought multiple tents. It wasn’t ideal because Brandon is the only one who owns a winter tent, but Carolyn decided to make do with her 3-season tent and we convinced Steve to join us this year! Steve did avalanche safety training with us this year, so he was interested in expanding his horizons.
Originally we wanted to do Zoa Peak, but the avalanche risk was particularly high the weekend we went, so we decided to do Lightning Lakes instead since there is very little avalanche terrain there. To be on the safe side, we still rented avalanche gear and practiced finding each other’s beacons to get more familiar and comfortable with the gear.
I won’t spend too much time on trail details as I just wrote a separate post about the Lightning Lakes trail. It was possible to hike on the lake, so we crossed once on the first lake and then followed the trail along the edge of the second lake to the back. I’ve never gone beyond the edge of the second lake, but it’s not too far to snowshoe to the next lake, which is Flash Lake, so we decided to check it out. We weren’t keen on camping on Lightning Lake since there’s a lot of foot traffic and we thought Flash Lake might be more secluded.
We didn’t see anyone along the Flash Lake trail, but the creek between the two lakes was not frozen and the head of the lake looked very sketchy. If we’d continued further, it likely would have improved, but we decided to turn around and instead found a nice clearing in the woods between the two lakes to set up camp.
Surprisingly there wasn’t actually a huge base of snow at Manning this year, so we didn’t have to dig too deep. In other years we’ve shared shovels, which made digging a bit slower, but this year we each had our own shovel, so even though we had multiple tents to dig out holes for, it ended up being a bit quicker than normal (or maybe we’re just getting better at it?). We dug deeper for Carolyn’s tent since it’s not a winter tent and we made sure to pack in a lot of snow around the edges for extra insulation. Fortunately it was only about -7 degrees overnight and with two people in the tent, they didn’t have any trouble staying warm.
We all upgraded some of our gear this year, so Steve inherited some of Carolyn’s old snow camping gear and I got to test out my new -30 degree rated sleeping bag. It took me a bit longer than I anticipated to warm up in the bag (you’re only as warm as the heat you bring in with you), but after about an hour I finally got toasty and after that, quite warm. I ended up having to unzip a little bit and slept most of the night with one arm out of the bag, so I’m optimistic it will hold up in colder temperatures. There are very limited options for winter camping sleeping bags and even fewer are available in Canada. I still think some of the features of my bag could be improved, but I do think it was the best option available to me as a side sleeper.
Like any snow camping trip, by the time you get to your destination, dig out your tents and make your snow kitchen, it’s more or less time to start getting ready for dinner before you lose daylight. We spent some time boiling water and enjoyed hanging out while we cooked our meals. I made the snow kitchen this year and I have to say I thought it turned out quite well! I made the counter/couch out of the pile of snow Carolyn shoveled out for her tent and then shoveled out a pit for one of the stoves. It snowed gently for most of the day and evening, but the clouds did clear a little bit and we got a glimpse of the stars before bed.
It was around 7pm when we crawled into our tents. I read until around 8pm when I finally got properly warm and then hit the sack. I woke up around midnight to pee and then slept the rest of the night until 8am – definitely one of the better nights sleep I’ve gotten snow camping!
After breakfast we took down camp and then spent some time playing around with our avalanche gear before heading back out to the cars. It doesn’t take too long to hike back along the edge of the lake and we did a few photoshoots along the way. We all have a bit of an obsession with Gregory packs, so we take turns making attempts to get ourselves Gregory sponsorships – so far, no luck, but we still have fun!
So overall it was a great first snow camping trip in Manning Park. Manning is a bit intimidating because it can get really cold there overnight, but fortunately for us it was pretty comfortable when we visited. Definitely have plans to go back and try camping at some of the other winter trails!
This will be the final post in my Manning Park snowshoe series (for now). To date I’ve only explored the beginner trails, but now that I have avalanche safety training I’m hoping to venture further out in upcoming years. I go out to Manning Park a lot, sometimes camping and sometimes just for the day, but on this occasion Seth and I decided to rent a little airbnb log cabin in the Sunshine Valley for a weekend. The cabin was really quaint – it had a woodstove, which made it feel really cozy, and no cell service or wifi, so it was truly a proper forest getaway.
We drove out on Friday night and then continued in to Manning Park on Saturday morning to go snowshoeing. We’d planned to do the Skagit River trail, but as it’s located right at the start of the park, and at a lower elevation, so it often won’t have fresh snow. On this occasion it didn’t, so we decided to save it for another day and continued on towards the resort to hike the Similkameen River Trail.
This trailhead starts just past the resort and is the same as the Windy Joe trail. You can park along the road just after the bridge and hike in along the river. Unfortunately we didn’t get the best conditions for it, the weather was good, but it was right after a wind storm, so there were a lot of fallen trees that we had to climb over and a lot of debris cluttering up the trail. Otherwise it was really nice though and I would love to go back and do it again.
We followed the trail along the river past the turn-off for Windy Joe. After that, there’s another trail branch and it looks like you can cross the river and loop back on the other side of the river. This is what we decided to do, but I’d advise you to just turn around and go back the same way because the trail on the other side of the river is the nordic ski trail and snowshoers aren’t permitted on this trail.
Before doing that though, we continued further along the river trail to extend the time (it’s pretty short if you just go to the branch and turn around). If you’re keen, you can hike it all the way to the Monument 78/83 trailhead, but this is a bit of a roundabout route that would leave you having to hike back the highway, so I recommend just turning around whenever you feel you’ve gone far enough. We probably continued on for about a kilometre before stopping for lunch by the river. The Windy Joe lookout would likely also make for a fun day, but I think you may need avalanche gear for this trail, so proceed with caution.
The Similkameen River also continues in the other direction from the trailhead and can be hiked in the resort snowshoe area as well, you just need to buy a trail pass for $10 at the resort to use that trail. There’s almost no elevation along the trail, so it’s great for beginners, and even with all the windfall, we still had a lot of fun exploring the trail! Definitely recommend!
The Road Goes Ever On 