Skookumchuck Narrows is a short hike on the north side of the lower Sunshine Coast. I’ve been aware of its existence for years, but because it’s a short hike and quite far away, I’ve never had a good reason to visit. In 2023, I attended a wedding in Pender Harbour, which gave me a great excuse to finally make a trip out to the Narrows.
Skookumchuck Narrows is a natural phenomenon on the Sunshine Coast that requires a little bit of explanation of the area. The Sunshine Coast is actually connected to mainland BC, but can be confusing because it requires taking a ferry to get there. There’s no road to get there because it’s separated from the mainland by Howe Sound and the vast mountainous wilderness, so the easiest way to travel there is a 40 minute ferry from Horseshoe Bay to Langdale.
Once you arrive on the Sunshine Coast, you have to drive an hour and a half along the coast. Right before you reach the 2nd ferry at Earl’s Cove, you branch off the highway to drive out to Egmont. The interesting thing about this area is that, from Sechelt to Earl’s Cove, the Sunshine Coast is almost an island. The ocean flows down a large channel at Earl’s Cove and then Sechelt Inlet extends all the way back to Sechelt, with several arms branching off the main inlet. What this means is that every time the tide changes, there’s a significant amount of water flowing in and out of the inlet. The narrowest part of the inlet is the Skookumchuck Narrows, which is why, twice a day, you get this natural phenomenon happening in this area, known as the Sechelt Rapids.
If you’re an experienced paddler, you can paddle up to the narrows from Egmont, or if you’re less of a thrill seeker, like us, you can hike 4.5km from Egmont to the Skookumchuck Narrows Provincial Park. It’s a fairly easy trail. It’s partially on forestry road and then switches to nice forested trails. You can circle around Brown Lake and then you eventually come to 2 viewpoints of the rapids.
The first viewpoint is the more official viewpoint and gives you a great look at the inlet. It’s really beautiful, even without the attraction of the rapids. We enjoyed the view here for a while, and then continued on less maintained trail to the large flat rocks at Roland Point where you can watch the real thrill seekers attempt to whitewater kayak through the rapids. Because there’s so much water coming in and out of the inlet, in this area it creates these rapids where you can paddle almost stationary because of the conflicting currents. It’s a bit hard to describe, but a picture is worth a thousand words in this instance.
If you want to watch the paddlers, you do need to be cognizant of your timing. If I’m being honest, we didn’t really plan this visit at all and had no idea when was the best time to visit. There was no one paddling when we visited the first viewpoint, but our timing must have been perfect, because a bunch of paddlers showed up right when we got to the second viewpoint and we ended up sticking around for quite a while to watch them. It was very entertaining!
Once we had our fill, we started the hike back. The nice thing about this hike in the summer is that there’s a little cafe near the end of the trail, which is a great place to stop for treats. So we rewarded ourselves before returning to the car. I won’t end the blog here though, because we caught one more attraction before leaving Egmont. We started to drive back to the highway, but just out of Egmont, there’s a big lake called Waugh Lake that you can access directly from the road. There’s no beach and limited parking, so it’s more of a roadside stop, but I saw a dock and a few kids swimming there. Since it was so hot, I wanted to swim too, so we made a quick stop and me and Seth both went for a refreshing swim before starting our journey back to Gibsons.
So while I wouldn’t place this trail super high on the bucket list, it’s a great option for beginner hikers or if you just want to have a more relaxing, slower paced day. I had a really fun time and I’m glad I finally got the chance to visit this well known, but not super busy, area.
Hiking Cirque Lake is a really unique experience located in the Callaghan Valley. I’ve never seen anything about this hike anywhere on social media, I literally stumbled across it while scrolling around GaiaGPS (something I do on a regular basis). So I wasn’t expecting it to be very busy, but other people are clearly aware of it because it was much more crowded than I anticipated.
What makes this hike unique is that you need to paddle across Callaghan Lake to access the trailhead. And in order to get to Callaghan Lake, you need some kind of slightly more rugged vehicle. Lots of information online says you should have 4WD and high clearance to access the lake, but that’s definitely overstating it. I have an AWD Hyundai Tucson SUV and I didn’t have any trouble. Callaghan Valley Road is paved, followed by an 8km drive along Callaghan Lake FSR, which is gravel. What makes it challenging is that there are water bars along the first half of the road, which is uphill. After that, it’s relatively flat and very drivable. The water bars aren’t so large that you need 4WD, although I do think AWD was helpful on one challenging water bar, but having slightly higher clearance is an asset. I wouldn’t take a sedan up to the lake (although I know people do), but I think any SUV could drive the FSR.
Once you make it to Callaghan Lake, there’s a FCFS campsite that is very popular. We arrived around 10am on a Sunday and there were lots of people camping, as well as a decent amount of day users. From the campsite, it’s a 2km paddle across Callaghan Lake to the Cirque Lake trailhead on the far side. Most people were using SUPs to access the trailhead, with the exception of me and Seth (we used our 16′ touring kayaks), and 1 or 2 canoers. There’s lots of room to store your boat at the trailhead and I’d guess there were 20 vessels piled up along the waterfront. So it was busier than I expected, but it didn’t feel crowded once you start hiking.
The thing about this hike is that it’s very short, but very steep because you’re hiking up to a hanging lake. It’s just over 1.5km each way, but it has 350m of elevation gain. I don’t think it’s a frequently maintained trail, so be prepared for a more technical hike. The biggest challenge I had was that when I got out of the kayak, I realized that I’d left my hiking socks in the car! I wore my water shoes in the kayak and had packed my hiking boots, but I didn’t remember to take my socks out of the trunk of the car.
If this trail had been any longer, I probably would have quit there rather than risk the blisters, but it was short enough that I decided to try anyways. I rooted around in my bag for something I could fashion into a pair of socks. I debated cutting up a buff, but landed on utilizing my first aid supplies. I made one sock out of a tensor bandage, and the other one out of a gauze roll. The gauze roll sock felt lighter and more comfortable at first, but became more scratchy the longer I was wearing it. The tensor bandage was bulkier, but mimicked sock material better. They held up, but I was definitely glad to take them off at the end of the hike!
The trail starts by hiking through the woods and quickly comes to a little stream that you have to cross. If you’re willing to get your feet wet, I recommend just walking through it, but that was the last thing I wanted while wearing band-aid socks. It’s a bit tricky to get across otherwise, it’s not fast moving, there’s just not a lot of great places to cross. We sized it up for a bit before using our poles to walk across a log.
After that, the trail continues uphill through the forest. It’s not too steep at first, but it quickly becomes technical as you climb up through the trees. There’s a rope section, although I didn’t find the rope particularly helpful and used the tree roots as handholds instead. Eventually, you pop out of the trees and have to climb up a boulder field. This is the most challenging part of the hike and I highly recommend poles. There’s some scree and loose rocks, so put some space between you and your hiking companions. But there are really nice views looking back towards Callaghan Lake and we could see more paddleboarders heading in as we climbed.
Once you get to the top of the boulder field, there’s still more uphill, but it gets a little less technical. You go back into the trees for a bit and then you climb up over the rocky headland. The trail can get confusing in this section as it branches off in a few places. There’s one place especially where the trail looks like it goes down towards the river flowing out of Cirque Lake, but it actually goes further uphill. I think either way will get you to the lake, but we followed the official trail up. This trail takes you to an overlook looking down on Cirque Lake that is really beautiful.
The worst part of this hike was probably the mosquitoes. Once we got a few photos from the viewpoint, we climbed down some more scree to get to the lakefront. There’s no real beach, but you can spread out along the rocks. This is where the flies got pretty bad. Fortunately, we had our thermacell and set it up right away. Then we went for a quick swim to get away from them while the thermacell worked its magic. The water was really cold, but so refreshing! The wind picked up after we went for a swim, and between that and the thermacell, we were able to tolerate the mosquitoes and ended up hanging out for about an hour while we had lunch.
This is a really beautiful area. It’s located at the start of the alpine and you can just see some of the glaciers peaking over the mountain tops. The mountain tumbles down into the lake on the west side and the east side is carpeted in lush green meadows. You could explore further around the lake if you were inclined, but you have to navigate more boulder field and I didn’t want to trample the meadows. I had debated camping at this location, but because it’s still in Callaghan Lake Provincial Park, there were signs indicating that camping is not permitted, so it’s a great day trip option.
Hiking back down to Callaghan Lake definitely had its challenges along the steep terrain of the boulder field. There’s a fair bit of scree here and poles were really helpful. Our big kayaks had looked excessive as we paddled across flat water on the way to the trailhead, but going back in the afternoon wind, we were thrilled to have them. Typically, the wind always picks up on the water in the afternoon (at least, that’s always been my experience as a paddler). There was a headwind on the way back that we were easily able to counteract in the kayaks, but several of the SUPs were struggling. People tend to go straight across the lake since it’s a relatively short paddle, but if it’s windy, always take the longer route and stick to the shoreline.
Just because it’s a short paddle, it doesn’t remove the danger. Callaghan Lake is glacier fed, so it’s very cold – much colder than going overboard in the ocean. You’ll want to be able to get back in your boat relatively quickly if you fall in, so you should never forego a lifejacket. I didn’t see a single person other than me and Seth wearing a lifejacket. We saw two guys paddling a canoe backwards across the lake (they were sitting forwards, but didn’t realize the entire canoe was backwards), so it was obvious a lot of people weren’t avid paddlers and were just using any means necessary to access the trailhead. In my opinion, it’s not worth that risk. It’s not a hard paddle and most beginners will be fine, but at the very least, wear a lifejacket and understand that it may be much windier on the water if you come back in the afternoon.
But overall, I really enjoyed this hike. I was surprised to see it gaining so much popularity, but it’s definitely for good reason. It’s a beautiful place and it’s relatively low effort to access!
It’s hard to believe that I’ve lived in BC for 12 years now and I’ve never hiked to the top of Golden Ears Peak. Golden Ears Park is one of the closest BC Parks to Metro Vancouver – it’s only a 30 minute drive from my house – and Golden Ears Peak is an iconic hike near the city. Due to its proximity to town and the epic views available from the summit, it’s a very popular destination. However, it also has 1500m of elevation gain and is a 24km round trip hike to the summit, so it is extremely challenging.
Golden Ears Peak has been on my bucket list for a long time, but due to the length and elevation gain, I knew I wanted to backpack it. There are two campsites along the trail. Alder Flats is located at the 6km mark, and Panorama is located at the 11km mark, 1km below the summit. There are only 7 tent pads at the Panorama Campsite, so it is important to get an early start if you want to snag one. Knowing I would have to hike fast in challenging terrain to get a tent pad, I’ve avoided this hike for a long time. I don’t like rushing up a mountain and I hate the feeling of competing for campsites.
I put all that aside this summer to finally hike this iconic trail. Carolyn is preparing to move back east in the Fall (I am devastated), so she’s been working on completing some of the bigger trails on her bucket list. We decided to make an attempt of this trail in mid-July. We didn’t get ideal weather, but we planned the perfect itinerary for this trip and had great success in executing it (something that always makes me happy I work as a project manager)!
You need a permit to camp on this trail from camping.bcparks.ca, but there is no reservation system, so anyone can hike it on any given day. There are only 7 tent pads, but there’s regularly 30+ tents set up at Panorama on any Saturday night. I’m surprised BC Parks hasn’t brought in a reservation system for camping in this park yet, but my theory is that they don’t want to promote the campsite without investing considerable resources into the trail, which is very technical and in very rough shape. Either way, we wanted to get a tent pad so that we weren’t further contributing to damage to the alpine meadows around the campsite.
Our plan was to drive to Golden Ears right after work on Friday and hike the first 6km to Alder Flats, camping there for the first night. We were able to get away from work a little early and pulled into the West Canyon Trail parking lot at 5pm. The first half of the trail to Alder Flats is super easy. It’s completely flat and well graded, so we finished that section in under an hour and then stopped for a quick supper. The next 3km are more challenging, with some uphill sections and lots of loose rock. But it’s still a relatively easy trail and we completed the full 6km in 2 hours, arriving at Alder Flats around 7pm.
Alder Flats was completely empty when we arrived, which didn’t surprise me because we started pretty early in the evening, but I was expecting it to get a lot busier. Two more groups did show up, and a third group of noisy bros rolled in at 2am (I’ve never hated anyone so much), but overall, I was expecting there to be a lot more people at the campsite. The weather for the weekend was looking a little bit mixed, with some clouds and rain in the forecast, so we thought that might keep some people away (spoiler, it didn’t). Maybe Alder Flats gets busier on other weekends, but it wasn’t busy on the weekend that we went.
The bros got up at 5am to continue their hike, which made me hate them even more because they woke us up twice, and me and Carolyn got up at 6am. The bros ended up being the first ones to the campsite and took two pads, but me and Carolyn were next after that. The tent pads didn’t all get taken until a solid 2 hours after we arrived, so we could have had a bit later start, but no regrets. Lots of people get up early to hike the full distance from the parking lot, so I’m sure conditions change on any given weekend. But for us, camping at Alder Flats and getting an early start from there was very successful.
But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Alder Flats is a nice campsite in the forest with a bear cache and outhouse, and has the benefit of being located close to a really nice river water source. There is no consistent water source at Panorama, but there’s a lot of snow up there and there’s usually run-off that you can drink until later in the summer, or you can melt snow. We’re both water snobs, so we opted to carry all our water up for the weekend. This is probably a little extreme and resulted in us each carrying 10lbs of water up the trail, but we’re both lightweight hikers and I honestly didn’t regret it. We could have treated the run-off at the top, but it was also nice to get up there and not have to worry about it.
After filling up our bladders, we left Alder Flats shortly after 7:30am. After Alder Flats, the trail gets substantially more challenging. It’s definitely doable to hike from the parking lot, but it was nice to rest overnight and only have to tackle 5km in the morning. Once you leave Alder Flats, the trail immediately heads uphill over loose cobble. This is some of my least favourite type of terrain. I call it “ankle rollers” because the loose cobble makes it really easy to roll your ankle and the rock is really tiring on your feet. The trail is like this for ~2km before you hit the next obstacle.
Following the loose cobble, you hit dense forest and have a very technical and sleep climb through the trees. There’s a viewpoint towards Golden Ears just before you hit your first set of stairs. There are several staircases at the start of this section and the first step is missing for almost all of them, so it feels very steep. The trail winds back and forth through the woods and you have to climb up and around a lot of tree wells and tree roots. There are lots of handholds on the trees, but you definitely need to use your hands to get around some of the obstacles. I don’t know exactly how long this section is, but I’d estimate around 1.5km. It goes very slowly because you cover a lot of elevation gain.
Eventually the forest thins and the trail levels out when you reach the sub-alpine. You’re still in the forest, but the trees are very short, so it feels more exposed and you can get good views. Definitely remember to apply sunscreen once you reach this section. Fortunately, it was cloudy on the day we hiked up. It still felt extremely damp and humid and we were sweating so much from climbing, but I think the hike would have been a lot more challenging on a hot day. We were both gross, but feeling pretty strong.
Once we reached the sub-alpine, the trail felt easier as you follow the ridge, but you do have to do a little bit of up and down as you cross over some bumps along the trail. We started seeing more people as everyone who had camped at the summit on Friday night was heading back down. Unfortunately, we couldn’t see any of the view because we hiked right into the clouds. This section is also ~1.5km in length, but it gets more challenging the closer you get to the campsite. There is one ladder and the last section is definitely a scramble and you should be prepared to use your hands as you climb up over the rock to the campsite.
Carolyn opted to bring Jasper with her and he did really great. Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this hike for dogs unless they do a lot of hiking, because it is a long trail and you will have to be prepared to help them through a few sections. The only tricky section along the trail to Panorama is the ladder, and maybe a few parts of the scramble right before camp. But if you plan on going to the summit, there’s a rope section where your dog may also need help. Plus you need to keep an eye on them near steep drop-offs.
Eventually, you get your first view of the emergency shelter and we confirmed that we were early enough to snag a tent pad! It took us just over 3 hours to hike from Alder Flats and we arrived pretty much right at 11am. We selected our tent pad, but rather than set up the tent, we set up our chairs and sat down to have a snack and a drink. Like I said, you couldn’t see any of the view yet, but we were optimistic that it would clear in the afternoon. Because there was no sun and we were at an elevation of 1350m, it was quite cold. We quickly layered up and after a nice break, we set up the tent and then ate our lunch in the shelter of the emergency cabin.
We had planned to eat in the cabin, but I’m sad to say, the emergency cabin is disgusting. It has not been treated well. Half of the cabin is a loft space for emergency use and storing your food, and the other half of the cabin is a urine-diverting outhouse that gets flown in at the start of the season. The cabin is dark with some abandoned gear, but the outhouse is absolutely gross. It’s a real shame because it’s actually a nice toilet and it had the potential to be nice. But people have left soooo much garbage on the floor of the outhouse that it stinks and is really disgusting. There are entire garbage bags of food waste, and then other people have left used pads and poopy toilet paper all over the floor. I’m glad people didn’t put their food waste and feminine products in the outhouse, but users at this site really need some basic education about leave no trace.
Like I said, the trail is super popular and looking at some of the groups, it’s clear that a lot of the visitors are beginner backpackers and a few people we talked to were first-timers. I find this a bit crazy because Golden Ears is such a challenging trail, it’s not an easy choice for your first trip. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it and I don’t judge people for it (if anything, I feel they were misled by social media). Backpacking is a learning experience and I don’t believe in gatekeeping it. We all start somewhere and we will all learn how to be better at it. But honestly, this campsite is just too overcrowded. I’m glad it has the outhouse, even if people don’t treat it well, because otherwise I can’t imagine the state of the meadows.
After lunch, it was still very foggy, so we decided to take a nap. Our sleep had been interrupted by the bros the previous night and we ended up passing out for the better part of 3 hours. When we left the tent, the campsite had been transformed. It was still cloudy, but there were now an additional 25 tents spread out everywhere throughout the meadow and there were people everywhere. We were just praying that it would eventually clear so that we could see the view, because neither of us wanted to ever return to this campsite.
The thing about Panorama Campsite is that it’s still located 1.1km from the summit of Golden Ears. One of the benefits of arriving early in the morning was that it left us with lots of time to explore the summit. But neither of us wanted to climb the mountain until the view cleared up. Finally, at 5pm, we got our chance. The clouds lifted and we were able to see the surrounding backcountry! If you look east, you’ll be able to see down towards Alder Flats. I thought we’d be able to see Alouette Lake, but it’s hidden behind other mountains. However, if you look west, you get the most incredible view of Pitt Lake!
Most of the people at the campsite had arrived later and were still sorting out their tents and water. But because we’d arrived so early, we decided to set off for the summit right away when the view cleared. Another group did the same, but few others bothered. Lucky for us though, the other group were frequent visitors and they were able to give us a few pointers about the route to the summit, which is still pretty technical.
We climbed out of the campsite, which is all exposed rock, but then there was a section of snow field that still hadn’t melted. We brought our microspikes for this section and I definitely wouldn’t recommend going up without them. It was easier than the ascent I did over snow the previous weekend at Brandywine Mountain, but it was still pretty steep in some sections. I’ve heard that early in the season the whole route to the summit can be covered in snow, in which case, you shouldn’t attempt it. The more technical parts of the route didn’t have any snow, so we felt reasonably comfortable.
After the snow field, there are 3 scramble sections. The first is the least technical and goes up over some rock and a few trees. Then you hit the second section, which has a rope going up the rock face. This spot was a little dicey and we debated not doing it because it looked intimidating. But up close it was a bit easier, so we continued on, Carolyn just had to help Jasper. At the top of the rope section, there’s a little plateau, which is a nice place for a break before starting the final ascent to the summit. The other group continued on, but we’d hiked back into the clouds and me and Carolyn had gotten very hungry, so we decided to stop and have our supper instead. We decided that if it cleared during our break, we would keep going, and if not, we’d stop there.
We had a really nice meal and break and then did some tiktok dancing while waiting for it to clear. It didn’t seem like it was going to, so eventually we decided it was time to head down. About a minute after we started hiking back, the clouds completely lifted and we finally got a view, so we ran back to our supper spot to take more photos. In the end, we still opted not to finish the last couple hundred metres to the summit. It was getting later in the evening and the very top of the summit never actually ended up clearing, so I’m content with our decision to just enjoy the view below the summit.
We ended up doing a bit more exploring on the way down to catch some of the views in other directions. We got back to the campsite just in time for sunset and Carolyn made us popcorn as a little treat. We ended up getting a beautiful cloud inversion as darkness set in. We’d climbed another 200m of elevation up to the summit, so we were pretty exhausted and fell asleep easily. We planned to get up for sunrise at 5:30am, but we were relieved to see that it had clouded back in overnight, which gave us the excuse to sleep in.
We had a pretty chill morning, but we were still packed and ready to head down by 9am. It’s 1200m of elevation loss to return to the parking lot, so I was really worried about my knees. They were definitely twinging, but overall did pretty good and I was relieved I didn’t have to hobble out the trail. We stopped for lunch at the helipad at Alder Flats, and then arrived in the parking lot at 2pm. So it took us 5 hours with a break to hike the whole way back down. We rewarded ourselves with burgers and beer at The Patch in Maple Ridge before returning home.
So overall, I’m thrilled that I can finally cross this trail off my bucket list, but also relieved that I won’t ever have to hike it again. I know some people do this as a day hike, but it would be a very big day (although I’m sure it’s easier with a smaller pack). I get why everyone wants to do this hike, the views are great, but the crowds are a lot to contend with and honestly, there are lots of other trails that are just as nice. I definitely wouldn’t recommend this hike to beginners and honestly, I probably wouldn’t recommend it at all because of the crowds. If you’re local and want to cross it off your list, absolutely, but if you’re just visiting, I would prioritize something else. But I can’t deny it is a pretty iconic hike.
The Road Goes Ever On 