Are you tired of reading about my trips to Elfin Lakes yet? I’ve visited Elfin Lakes more than any other trail, but I’m still not tired of writing about it because I feel like every time I go there I experience something new!

Despite having spent a lot of time at Elfin Lakes, this was only my second time going there in the middle of winter, and it was my first time actually staying in the hut! So it prompted me to kick off a new blog series about BC’s extensive hut system. Aside from the Sunshine Coast Trail, which has a 180km network of huts, and Tetrahedron, I believe this was my first time staying in a hut, especially in the winter. So it might take me a bit of time to build up some hut content, but we all start somewhere! After many years of thinking about it, I finally signed up to be a member of the Alpine Club of Canada, so I’m hoping there will be a few more hut trips in my future.

But let’s talk about Elfin Lakes! If you’re not familiar, it’s a very popular trail in Garibaldi Provincial Park. You can visit it any time of year as a day user, but you do need a reservation and permit to camp overnight in the park. These are fairly easy to get on weekdays, but if you want to visit on a weekend, make sure you book as soon as the reservations release, which is 4 months before your desired trip dates. My friend Victoria took care of the bookings for us and 4 of us planned to go up to the hut during the first weekend in January.

The parking lot for Elfin Lakes is called the Diamond Head Parking Lot, and from there it’s an 11km hike to the shelter. In the winter, snow tire chains are required to reach the parking lot. You can drive most of the way there with winter tires, but the last 2km are steep and chains are mandatory. If you don’t have them, you can park at the lower lot and add 2km to your trip. We drove in Brandon’s 4runner and made it all the way to the trailhead. 

The first 5km of the trail is super easy. It follows an old logging road up to the Red Heather Hut. It’s a fairly wide trail through the trees. There was fresh snow when we visited, so it looked really scenic, but sometimes the snow does melt at the lower elevations, so while it’s a gentle incline up to Red Heather, there’s not always snow all the way from the parking lot. Red Heather Hut is a picnic hut for day use only (you can’t camp in it). It doesn’t see much use in the summer, but it is really popular in the winter. From December to April, you can get a backcountry permit to snow camp at Red Heather (or Elfin Lakes), and these usually don’t sell out. The permits for the Elfin Lakes shelter will sell out on weekends.

Red Heather is most popular for day users in the winter. From Red Heather Hut, it’s another ~1km to hike up to the top of Round Mountain, which is really popular among backcountry skiers and split-boarders. People put skins on the bottom of their skis to climb up to the top of Round Mountain, and then ski a few laps down to the hut, before returning to the parking lot. The last time I visited Elfin Lakes in the winter was in 2019. We snowshoed to the lake and snow camped outside the shelter. This time, I hiked up on touring skis! There were 4 of us in total, me and Victoria were on skis, while Brandon and Emma were on split-boards. 

We stopped at Red Heather Hut for lunch and then continued our hike up to the top of Round Mountain. This is the steepest part of the journey and we were pretty tired by the top we reached the top. We didn’t do any skiing from Round Mountain because we had to continue another 5km to reach the Elfin Lakes shelter. 

Because Elfin Lakes is so popular, it’s easy to think that means it’s a safe area. It is relatively safe. I don’t think the trail is in avalanche terrain at all up to Red Heather Hut, but after the hut, there is definitely some avalanche risk. The first time I snowshoed there, I didn’t have my AST training and was definitely taking a risk by hiking there. Now that I know better, I wouldn’t recommend it. Get your AST1 and avalanche safety equipment before attempting to visit Elfin Lakes. I’ve written a whole blog post on avalanche safety as part of my Let’s Talk safety series.

The avalanche risk was moderate on the day we visited. The two sections of trail where you need to exercise extra caution are: around the back of Round Mountain and around Paul’s Ridge. The section behind Round Mountain in particular goes through challenging avalanche terrain. We all had beacon, probe, and shovel, and once we hit this section, we put more distance between each other as we crossed through the more technical terrain. I was leading at the time, so I would go through a section, wait for Victoria to clear it, and then proceed to the next section while she waited for Emma. We did this section by section to ensure that if there was an avalanche, we wouldn’t all be buried. 

We’re all relatively new to touring – it was their first season for Brandon, Victoria, and Emma. Brandon and Emma struggled on the way to Elfin because they are both boarders and still getting used to being on skis, so it was good to have the group split in half. Me and Victoria mostly looked out for each other, while Emma and Brandon did the same. The last 5km are easier than the first half of the trail, it’s more flat, with small uphill and downhill sections, but it took the boarders some time to adjust. That said, they improved really quickly and we made much faster time on the way back! 

One thing to be wary of when visiting Elfin Lakes is that there is a different trail from Round Mountain to Elfin Lakes in the winter. BC Parks stakes the entire trail, so it’s very easy to follow, but if you’re relying on GPS, make sure you upload the winter trail and don’t try and follow the route for the summer trail. This section of trail is incredibly scenic and it was my favourite part of the day. Unfortunately, it was completely overcast on our way there, so we didn’t see any of the surrounding landscape, but it wasn’t windy, so the conditions were good. It was quite windy when I snowshoed there in 2019, which makes for a much more challenging traverse. 

It’s a lot more fun crossing this section on skis. There’s a fair bit of downhill on the way to the shelter. Not enough to remove your skins and clip into your skis, but it made it a lot more fun to travel across the ridge. Everyone had a few wipeouts along the way! We dubbed our new ski club, “the turtles”, because you look/feel like a turtle whenever you wipe out due to the weight of your overnight packs pulling you backwards. Plus we were ecstatic to realize there were 4 of us and that we matched the 4 teenage mutant ninja turtles! (I’m Raphael)

It took us ~6.5 hours to get to the hut, including our lunch break, so we were traveling at a speed of ~2km/h. Once the split-boarders get a little more experienced, I think we could probably shave an hour off the time (every time you wipeout, it takes a while to unclip from your skis and get ready again, especially with the overnight pack). We arrived at the hut around 3:30pm in the afternoon and spent the rest of the evening relaxing! It’s a two story hut that can sleep ~30 people. There’s a bunch of picnic tables on the main floor, along with shared propane burners and a propane furnace. There are lots of large pots to use for melting snow and people mostly used the communal pots and burners as a shared resource for melting snow for drinking water. Generally, everyone could help themselves to the water and then just add some more snow to the pot. Most people had their own stoves for cooking food.

Emma brought a wheel of camembert cheese to share, along with bread and charcuterie! She baked the cheese wheel and it was a delicious afternoon snack! We took it easy for the rest of the evening, played some cards and ate dinner. Most people at the hut were on skis, but there were a few snowshoers there as well. Given that there were 30 people in the hut, I was expecting that there would be at least a few noisy partiers and was prepared to not sleep well. So I was thrilled when it turned out everyone at the hut were early-to-bed campers! The hut was completely silent with everyone in bed by 8:45pm!!! I still didn’t sleep well, but there were no really noisy snorers, so it was really the best sleeping conditions we could have hoped for.

As a result, everyone was also up early for a big day of touring. Some people continued to go skiing around the Saddle, but most people were heading back to the parking lot. We had a bit of a slow start after Victoria had a mishap with her breakfast. She frantically woke us up with the choice phrase of, “we’ve been robbed!”, which left us all a little confused as she tried to explain exactly what had happened.

She had brought a huge breakfast to share with Brandon and Emma (I declined on this occasion because I was trying to keep my pack light). She hung her food bag high on the porch to keep it cool overnight and unfortunately something walked off with the entire bag of food! We thought the only visitors would be mice, but there’s obviously some other animals prowling the area. My guess is it was either a bobcat or a lynx. We felt really bad about an animal getting access to human food and the plastic waste that will now be somewhere in the wilderness, but all Victoria was able to find were a few small scraps of her dry bag. So a lesson learned for us!

Fortunately, we all were prepared with extra food (especially Emma, who brought 3 extra sandwiches out of fear of excessive hunger), so it wasn’t hard to scrounge up a substitute breakfast. We ended up leaving the hut around 11am and the return trip was a lot faster. In contrast to the previous day, we had amazing conditions! It was a sunny, blue sky day and we could see the breathtaking views of the Garibaldi backcountry! There was a little bit of fog moving around throughout the day, but it honestly just made the views even more scenic. I loved skiing along the ridge back to Round Mountain. 

Once we got around Round Mountain, we stopped to take off our skins and strap into our skis (and boards). From Round Mountain, it’s all downhill back to the parking lot, so we were able to properly ski. The section from Round Mountain to Red Heather is the most exciting, with lots of open area to explore. There was A LOT of powder. It might be the most powder I’ve ever skied, which sounds exciting, but was a new challenge to manage. Victoria and Emma blasted down to the hut, but I took my time. It was really fun in the powder, but it is a challenge to balance with the overnight pack. I did have one pretty spectacular wipeout where I picked up too much speed and my pack tipped me over when I tried to turn. 

We ate lunch at Red Heather Hut again and it only took us about a half hour to ski the 5km back down the logging road to the car. The sun was definitely heating up the trails and it felt like spring skiing. There wasn’t as much snow as we approached the base and I had to avoid a few thin patches. But the lighting through the trees was gorgeous and we all had a great time despite the aching thighs!

I feel like this trip was very much the realization of a dream I’ve been working on for the past 3 years. I’ve always been intrigued about touring, but I was intimidated by it for a long time and didn’t want to invest in the equipment. When I decided to replace my downhill skis 3 years ago, I knew it was time to finally get a backcountry set-up. I loved pretty much everything about this trip!

The conditions were amazing, the company was fantastic, and the views were gorgeous! As fun as it is to go downhill, traversing the ridge ended up being my favourite part of the adventure. I felt a lot more confident on my touring skis and it was more fun than snowshoeing. Even though the ridge is fairly flat, it’s somehow way more fun on skis! I’ve always wanted to stay in the Elfin Hut and it was a great first overnight touring trip. I felt that we were all safe and made good decisions. I absolutely can’t wait to keep exploring on my skis, improve my skills, and have more adventures! Thanks for coming along for the ride!