Mount Seymour Snow Camping

February 5, 2025January 27, 2025 / Maria / 1 Comment

This post will be a bit different from my usual snow camping trip, but there’s so many ways to enjoy the outdoors and I like highlighting all of them! It is on my bucket list to one day snow camp on Pump Peak, but if you’re nervous about the exposure (and avalanche terrain) and want to get out with a group, there’s an excellent alternative just below the base of the ski resort!

This trip was done with my Trex unit, which is a special branch of Girl Guides of Canada that is focused on outdoor adventure for teenagers. It’s not part of the core guiding program, which is for all ages (Kindergarten to grade 12), and is more well rounded and focuses on art, STEM, physical and mental well-being, and activism, in addition to camping skills. Trex is for teens (including girls, trans-girls and non-binary individuals) who want to go to the next level with their outdoor skills.

This winter we reserved the Mount Seymour Group Site to practice snow camping! The site is located next to the P1 Parking Lot and is closed to the public unless you have a booking. It’s a very economical option for non-profit groups, but a little more expensive for others (but still very reasonable). The site has a warming hut with 6 picnic tables and a large field to camp in. Unfortunately, our camp was at the end of a week of particularly warm weather, so there was very little snow on the ground. We weren’t able to practice making snow shelters, but it was still a good opportunity for Trex to camp outside in below zero conditions in a safe environment.

We were able to hang out and eat all our meals in the shelter, which has a wood stove. So it was easy to keep warm before bed. As a precautionary measure, one of the guiders (in this case me) slept in the hut all night to keep the fire going in case of emergency, but all members did great overnight and everyone slept in their tents for the full night!

Given the proximity to Seymour, we were able to take advantage of the nearby recreation activities. We walked up the road to the ski resort base and spent some time playing in the snow along the trails. We didn’t do a full hike, but nearby options include snowshoeing Dog Mountain or Brockton Point, or exploring within the Mount Seymour trails. We got some wet snow in the morning, followed by sunny breaks in the afternoon and an absolutely gorgeous morning on our second day.

There’s not too much else to share about the site. Like I said, you do need a booking to stay there. A day pass is required in the winter to visit Mount Seymour, but you can just use your permit for the group site to get up the mountain. It’s only a minute walk from the parking lot at P1 to the site and there is an outhouse. There’s also a tap, but it’s turned off in the winter, so make sure you bring all the water you need with you. We used snow melt for washing dishes, but didn’t want to drink it since there hadn’t been any fresh snow in at least a week.

The only downside is that people will continually walk through your site despite 3 signs instructing them not to and informing of a fine. Please don’t do this, especially when youth groups are using the site. I was there with minors, and while I know you just want to take a photo with the pretty snow on the trees, I have a responsibility for their care and can’t have randoms walking around the site where they sleep, taking photos. The site was closed for 2 years during COVID, so people seem to think it’s just fair game now.

Overall, we had a great time. We’ve also stayed at the Lone Duck group site in Manning Park. I would say the Lone Duck site is nicer (it’s more private, gets more snow, and it’s right on the lake), but the real benefit of Mount Seymour is how close it is to the city. A great option if you’re looking for a safe way to try snow camping!

Whitewater Rafting the Elaho River with Girl Guides

August 9, 2023July 11, 2024 / Maria / 2 Comments

I think this may be one of my favourite things I’ve ever done with my Girl Guide unit (although our Elfin Lakes trip was a close second). I love whitewater rafting, but obviously I don’t do it very much because it’s very expensive. To date, I’ve done it in Peru, Costa Rica, New Zealand, and several different locations in Canada. Me and Seth even rafted the same river a few years ago, but I had much nicer weather on this occasion and it was at the perfect time for peak flows, so this experience was much more memorable.

Even though we were just doing a day trip, we decided to turn it into a full 2 night camp. We booked two campsites at Alice Lake and drove out to Squamish on Friday after school. Vancouver had the nicest weather in May and it didn’t rain for about 3 and a half weeks, but of course, the rain returned just in time for our camp. It rained our whole drive out, but fortunately it stopped when we arrived at the campsite and we were able to get our pop-ups and tents set up while it was relatively dry. We had a propane campfire and were in bed before the rain fully started overnight.

We’d been planning to hike the Chief on Saturday, which is on a bunch of our member’s bucket lists, but it was still raining when we got up, so we decided to go with our back-up plan instead. The Chief can get very slippery when it’s wet and we could see that the summit was still in the clouds, so we opted to visit Brohm Lake instead.

Fortunately the rained stopped when we got to the lake, and though it remained cloudy for the rest of the day, the rain stayed away. We started with a hike around the lake, which was a lot more hilly than I was expecting, before hiking up to the Tantalus Viewpoint. I think this was a good alternative trail to the Chief, because it was still challenging, without being too dangerous. I did the hike once 8 or 9 years ago and I’d pretty much entirely forgotten what the terrain was like. It’s a bit more technical than I remembered, so it was good for us to build up our skills.

There’s about 200m of elevation gain up to the viewpoint and it is pretty steep. Everyone did really well and we eventually made it up to the summit. I thought the views were still really nice and it looked kind of cool with the clouds moving around the trees. Unfortunately we couldn’t see the Tantalus Range, but we had a nice lunch break along the ridge before heading back down to the lake.

We returned to our campsite in the afternoon before a very fun pizza night at Joe Pesto’s in Squamish. We spent the evening playing some games and enjoying the views around Alice Lake before heading to bed.

Sunday was all about whitewater rafting. We went with Canadian Outback and we had such a blast! It was their first time rafting for all of the girl guides, so they were a little nervous, especially when the event started with a 20 minute discussion about safety. I could see them all looking a little bit apprehensive, but I was so psyched to get in the raft and tried to pump them all up. I needn’t have worried though because as soon as we started going down the rapids, they all had a blast! We were able to do a little bit of swimming in some of the gentle rapids, and I got the chance to try “driving” the raft while some of the girls balanced at the front.

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The Elaho is a very special river. We started pretty far back in the backcountry and after about an hour it merges with the Squamish River. One of my favourite sections of the river is right at the start, you go down a set of rapids called Devil’s Elbow because of the sharp 110 degree bend in the river. It’s characterized by steep canyon walls which are incredibly scenic.

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After that, you get amazing views of Mount Cayley, which I learned is the sister mountain to Mount Garibaldi because they are both dormant volcanoes with distinctive peaks. Once you merge into the Squamish River, you can see Mount Cayley behind you and the Weeping Wall ahead. The Weeping Wall is named because it’s a shear rockface and in the height of the snow melt (which was mid-June, the exact time we were visiting), you get dozens of cascading waterfalls coming down the rockface. It’s a beautiful site and considered sacred to the local first nations.

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The snow melt also contributed to a very eventful day on the river. Our guides told us that the Saturday and Sunday trips we’re the best ones they’d run all season because the river was running at peak flow and we got some truly epic rapids. The rapids build up until you reach Steamroller, which is one of the most intense rapids on the river and our absolute favourite. We got smoked by wave after wave, but Trex had so much fun!

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After the last rapid, there’s a bit of a leisurely paddle through what’s known as “the braids” before you get to the take-out spot. It’s not as thrilling as the rapids, but it was a gorgeous sunny day and we had beautiful views of the surrounding mountains.

We were much later getting back to the rafting camp then we anticipated and then we got stuck in traffic on the way back to Vancouver, but it was such an epic day, I’m sure the girls will all remember it for a long time. If you have the time and capital to try whitewater rafting, definitely do it, we had an incredible time!

Twin Islands Kayaking Trip with Girl Guides

August 2, 2023August 13, 2024 / Maria / 1 Comment

Last year my Girl Guide group did a backpacking series and we hiked to Viewpoint Beach, 3 Brothers Mountain, and Elfin Lakes. This year we decided to focus on a water series and selected 3 different activities to try: kayaking, rafting, and canoeing. The first activity in our water series was a 1 day paddling trip with Deep Cove Kayaks to Twin Islands in Indian Arm.

Even though I’ve been to Twin Islands once before as a day trip, I always think of it as being pretty far away, when in reality, even a group of 10 girl guides can do the entire trip in just 5 hours. We arrived to Deep Cove Kayaks at 8:30am to prepare for our trip, which started with some on-land instruction about paddling. Most people are probably aware of Deep Cove Kayaks already as they’re incredibly popular, but I have to do a shout-out for their group activities as well, because their school program is absolutely fantastic. They were thrilled to take our group out on the water and they gave us an unbelievable discount as an educational group.

We all got situated in our double kayaks and practiced some turns in the water before heading over to Jug Island. I frequent Jug Island a lot in my personal kayak, but I usually visit it from Belcarra. We played paddle roulette on the beach before departing again for Twin Islands. My favourite kayak trip is to paddle from Belcarra to Jug Island then over to the 8 corners tea room, but it’s not much further to paddle to Twin Islands via Racoon Island, so I think I may have to start doing it more.

The last time I visited Twin Islands it was absolutely packed with other kayakers – it was still busy on this visit, but no where near as bad. We landed on the south island to stop for our lunch. It was one of the girl’s birthdays, so we celebrated with none other than the infamous Honey’s Donuts from Deep Cove! I know Honey’s Donuts are pretty legendary, but I’d actually never had one before and I couldn’t get over how large they were! They’re very cakey (which is my favourite) and I had the maple dip donut (my other favourite), so it was the perfect kayaking snack!

There was a race happening the same day we visited the island and people were racing from Deep Cove, around Twin Islands, and back, so we made sure to stay out of their way. We paddled back the same way we’d come, but at a bit of a reduced pace since it was getting windier. We got back to Deep Cove around 2pm – we stopped for about a half hour at Jug Island and 45 minutes at Twin Islands, so it was under 4 hours of paddling in total. The girls all did great and I could barely keep up with them!

So it’s a pretty short trip report, but I really think this makes for a great day trip if you have the time to commit to it. I’d recommend getting to Deep Cove early because parking is very intense, or alternatively, you could also paddle from Belcarra and rent from Takaya. Parking is challenging in Belcarra as well, but you don’t have to be quite as early as Deep Cove, which is the more popular of the two. But overall, a great trip to do with either friends or family! I highly recommend!