Ski Resort Series: Cypress

February 23, 2022February 16, 2022 / Maria / 2 Comments

Cypress is probably my most skied resort in BC after Whistler-Blackcomb, but I’ve never found the time to write about it because I rarely ski there in the day. When we first moved to Vancouver, we made a few trips up the mountain for Saturday skiing, but it’s such a popular place, it hardly seemed worth it. Since then, I’ve been up on the occasional weekend, but always for snowshoeing. Unless you get there super early, you will have to walk a long distance to get to the resort, so come prepared. I once did the whole walk from the lower lots in ski boots and my feet just about died, so bring a bag to pack your other shoes with you, it’s worth it.

This might lead you to believe that I don’t really like Cypress, but in fact, I do actually really like skiing there. There are three resorts located in very close proximity to the city: Cypress, Grouse, and Seymour, of which Cypress is the largest. Cypress actually spreads across two mountains: Black Mountain and Mount Strachan, with the ski resort nestled in between the two. I like Cypress because even though it gets busy, it’s large enough to spread out the skiers and boarders, unlike the smaller mountains like Seymour, which can become very congested.

Mount Strachan is the higher of the two mountains and has two key chairs: Lion’s Express and the Sky Chair. There are some smaller chairs that service the bunny hill, but Lions and Sky are the key lifts. Sky Chair is obviously popular because it goes up to a phenomenal viewpoint looking out towards both Howe Sound and the backcountry. It also has the added fun of being a rare 2-person chair, so it feels kind of vintage and is fun to board. It’s one of the best places to catch sunset on the mountain. I also like the Lion’s Express, which I find tends to have the shortest queues because it’s the fastest chair (although the queues often look very long, they just move quicker).

Black Mountain also has two chairs, Eagle Express and Raven Ridge. I’m a little embarrassed to say I’ve never actually skied the Raven Ridge chair – it’s the last part of the mountain they usually open and it doesn’t have any lightning, so it’s not open for night skiing either. I can’t recall ever skiing Cypress when it was actually open. But I do really like the area accessible from Eagle Express. There are lots of intersecting runs from this part of the mountain. You can also ski the green run, Panorama, which has great views looking down into the city.

So why do I like Cypress so much, even though I’m loathe to go on the weekends? As my photos indicate, it’s mostly for the night skiing. Cypress is pretty expensive for a lift pass given its size, but it is one of the best value for money if you want to ski from dawn ’til dusk. A full day pass allows you to ski all the way until 10pm! Generally I will just get an evening pass, which starts at 5pm, and ski after work. Being able to hit the slopes when you finish work for the day is one of the coolest parts about living in Vancouver. Pre-pandemic, we would night ski and then grab a beer in the resort around 9pm before heading home for the night.

The only downside to night skiing is the conditions are often not all that great. There’s no chance to groom the runs during the day, so they’ll either be pretty tore up, or they’ll be very slippery from heating up in the day and then freezing again overnight. But occasionally you get a visit where it’s either snowing while you’re there, or you get above the clouds and get a beautiful inversion down over the city. I love skiing there in March, when there’s enough daylight that you can catch sunset from the skychair on your first run.

If you don’t have a car, Cypress is accessible by bus, but I think you might be limited to the daylight hours. I have taken the bus in the past, but it’s not a city bus, so it is rather expensive if you’re already shelling out for a full day of skiing. My preference has always been to carpool or take an evo or modo up the mountain. If you drive, just made sure you have snow tires or chains, which are required on Cypress Mountain Road in the winter.

So overall, despite the crowds, I do really like Cypress and try to ski there at least once a year. Definitely recommend it since it’s so close to the city and does have some truly beautiful views! Sorry for the low quality photos, they’re all a few years old and taken on crappy cell phones, one day maybe I’ll lug my night camera up there for sunset!

Snowshoeing Joffre Lakes

February 16, 2022February 16, 2022 / Maria / Leave a comment

This post is a bit dated and has been a long time coming, but it was a fun trip and with Family Day coming up, it seemed like an appropriate time to write about it, so here we go! I’ve day hiked Joffre Lakes twice in the summer and I snowshoed it once in the winter of 2017 with Emily and Brandon during the Family Day Long weekend.

I’m not sure if Joffre Lakes is considered avalanche terrain or not as it’s not mapped on Avalanche Canada, but at the time I had read that it was pretty safe up to the second lake, so that’s where we decided to go. I’d read there was more risk going up to the third lake, so we decided against going that far and I would advise avalanche equipment and training if you go beyond second lake. Now that I’m a little wiser, I’d probably prefer to have avalanche safety equipment for the whole trail, but as I can’t remember the details of the terrain, make sure to do some additional research before visiting.

Fortunately we didn’t run into any problems in 2017 and were smart enough to check the avalanche bulletin before we visited. Emily wasn’t living in Vancouver at the time, but she came to visit me to go skiing and after a few days at Whistler, Brandon joined us for a little long weekend adventure around the Pemberton/Lillooet area. Our first stop was Joffre Lakes.

I don’t remember getting a particularly early start in the morning, but we had no trouble finding parking at the trailhead and the trail was relatively empty – some of the perks of visiting in the low season. We had a few false starts on the trail because Emily was trying to figure out what to wear and we ended up making a some adjustments. If you’re new to snowshoeing, which we were at the time, it can be a bit tricky because you want to stay warm without overheating. I like to pack my snow pants for when I stop to eat lunch, but I don’t like hiking in them. This means that you need to have a good pair of water resistant pants instead and wear high boots or gaiters to keep your legs from getting wet from the kickback of the snow on your snowshoes. These days I hike with long underwear, water resistant pants, and high boots.

One of the things I love about Joffre Lakes is that the first lake is only minutes from the parking lot, so you’re immediately rewarded with a gorgeous view! There’s less to see on the trail after that in the winter and I mostly remember being in the trees – although on the way down you get a beautiful view looking out over the surrounding mountains when you pass through the boulder field. There were quite a few people ski touring, so you just have to watch out for them as a snowshoer since they move so much faster (downhill anyways). While Joffre isn’t a particularly long or challenging hike in the summer, it is a bit steep in the winter, so I remember being pretty tired by the time we hit the second lake.

We had good weather when we visited, it was a bit overcast, but not so much that you couldn’t see the view. So we set up on the lake when we arrived to have our lunch. Unfortunately, it was a bitterly cold day, which was not improved by being out on the open lake. We got really cold, really fast. Even with snow pants, we had to bundle up immediately and Emily recalls it as being the coldest she’s ever been. I’m not sure if we were doing something wrong because I can’t ever recall being as cold in the snow as we were eating lunch at Joffre. It was particularly bad for Emily – I think she may not have had a sit-upon and been sitting right in the snow in her snow pants, so she did not want to stick around.

So unfortunately, we didn’t have long to enjoy the view before we were packing up again to keep moving. It was a good lesson in preparedness though. I don’t think we were overly underprepared, but it was a good reminder how inhospitable the wilderness can be. There’s no way we would have survived a night out there if something had gone wrong. So always bring lots of extra layers in the winter, as well as I’ve started hiking with a small stove and pot so that I’m able to make hot drinks to help stay warm. Items like a bivvy sack or an inreach can also save your life if you get stuck somewhere.

We warmed up again once we started moving and it was a quick hike back down to the bottom. We ended up spending the night in Lillooet (which has the most beautiful view of Seton Lake) and returned to Pemberton the following day. We’d been hoping to visit Keyhole hot springs, but a semi truck jack knifed on the road on the way to the springs, cutting off traffic in both directions, so we opted to cut our losses and did a bit of snowshoeing in the Pemberton area and Nairn Falls instead. Fortunately we weren’t stuck on the other side of the semi truck, in which case, make sure you have survival gear in your car as well because you never know how long you could be there!

Snowshoeing Brockton Point

February 2, 2022February 26, 2026 / Maria / 3 Comments

Vancouver got a lot of snow through the Christmas holidays in 2021 and when I returned from my trip to Newfoundland I was excited to get up in the mountains and enjoy it! So the first weekend back in January we woke up super early to be at Mount Seymour when the gate opened at 7am. We’re not quite on the ball enough to get there right on time, but we were able to get parking and hit the hill around sunrise. If you’re visiting these days, you will need to get a parking pass from BC Parks in order to park in the backcountry lot. These are available at https://bcparks.ca/reservations/day-use-passes/ and release at 7am, 2 days in advance of your trip. They are free, but will sell out on the weekends, so make sure to get it right away when it releases.

Our desired destination was Pump Peak, which is located past the top of the ski lift, about mid-way to Mount Seymour. I hiked up the ski lift towards Pump Peak once in the summer on my way to Elsay Lake and I snowshoed to Brockton Point the previous winter during my avalanche training course. But it was pouring rain and foggy on that occasion, so I didn’t remember too much about the trek. It’s about 7km out and back to Pump Peak and we were planning to have breakfast at the top. We never ended up making it past Brockton Peak, which was for the best because we later learned that beyond Brockton Peak is avalanche terrain, so it is highly recommended that you take an Avalanche Safety Course and bring proper equipment with you if you are hiking past Brockton.

It’s a bit of a slog to snowshoe up to Brockton Point, which is at the top of the ski lift. The snowshoe trail runs parallel to the ski run, but never connects. It’s a wide trail and it’s a pretty steady uphill trek, but boy is it beautiful! The weather blessed us on our visit and it was a gorgeous blue sky day with several inches of fresh powder from the day before. Once you get up to Brockton Point, there are beautiful views in all directions and you can see both out to the backcountry and down to Vancouver. We brought our dog Sadie with us and she had a lot of fun in the snow. However, she is a reactive dog (which basically means she doesn’t like strange dogs approaching her) – this is an on-leash trail, but a lot of dog owners ignore the rule and let their dogs run free, so be aware if off-leash dogs make you or your pup uncomfortable.

If you’re looking for an easier day, I recommend stopping at Brockton Point, which is about 4-4.5km round trip from the main ski parking lot, but add another 1km each way from the backcountry parking lot, which is where you’ll be required to park. We started to hike towards Pump Peak, which is easily visible from Brockton Point. The trail descends from Brockton to do a bit of a round about of Pump Peak to climb up from the the back. We started towards it, but as we snowshoed, we checked the time and realized we might not have quite as much time as we needed. We weren’t really that slow, but we weren’t super fast either. We only had a day pass for the morning and Carolyn’s puppy Jasper was home alone, so we wanted to be back down to the car for noon.

We could have pushed on to Pump Peak, but we would have had to turn around immediately upon getting there, so we decided to stop at a viewpoint near Brockton Point instead (which given the avalanche terrain concerns, was the right choice). We’d all brought our stoves to make breakfast and the views were gorgeous all along the ridge, so we didn’t mind missing out on the peak. Me and Seth made oatmeal, Carolyn and Steve made breakfast sandwiches, and Brandon outshined us all with mountaintop dim sum! It was a warm enough day with the sun shining down on us and we liked having a long relaxing break in the snow instead of rushing up and down to Pump Peak.

A few words of advice if you’re visiting Seymour – as I mentioned above, there is now a winter permit system to access the mountain. People have a lot of mixed feelings about this and I think the system has definite pros and cons, but it seems like it’s here to stay, so make sure to get your pass before visiting the mountain. Seymour Resort staff will be checking for permits at the base of the mountain, so you won’t get past the gate without a permit and you won’t get past the snowshoe parking lot without a ski pass. So be prepared for the extra walk up and back to the parking lot. I recommend going early because even with the new system, as this is a very popular destination and even with the pass, you might get stuck parking very far down the lot (which means more hiking added to your journey).

A lot of people visit Seymour to hike Dog Mountain, which is an easier trail, but there are a lot of people recreating out to Pump Peak as well. The pass system has thinned out the trails a bit, which is nice, but be prepared to encounter lots of snowshoers, skiers, and dogs. A lot of the trail is multi-use, but there are a few places where it branches and skiers will often take slightly different routes, so my advice as a snowshoer is to follow the trail markers.

As mentioned, you are entering avalanche terrain if you choose to go all the way to Pump Peak. The trail along the ski resort is in simple terrain, so you’re probably mostly okay without avalanche equipment if you’re only going to Brockton Point, but eventually you will reach a sign with the avalanche danger rating just before Brockton Point. After this point, you are leaving simple terrain and entering challenging terrain, so make sure you are familiar with avalanche hazards and take the proper equipment with you. See my post on avalanche safety for more details.

But if you’re prepared, Brockton Point/Pump Peak make for a great snowshoe adventure! I still haven’t made it to Pump Peak, which is why I titled this point Brockton Point instead, but whenever I don’t finish a trail, I just say it was because I had to leave something to come back for! So one day I’ll be back to finish this trail for real!