Hut Series: Elfin Lakes

January 22, 2025January 22, 2025 / Maria / 2 Comments

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!

A Weekend in Canmore

January 15, 2025January 15, 2025 / Maria / Leave a comment

I’m very much a type A personality planner, but every now and then I love going on a spontaneously planned trip. Carolyn and I seem to have gotten in the habit of taking an impulsive Fall getaway every other year (which has included a half marathon in Vegas and an impromptu trip to see a cancelled Harry Styles concert in LA). This year we set our sights a little closer to home and decided to make a quick trip out to the Rocky Mountains.

We booked a flight to Calgary two weeks before the trip, which was honestly a little more expensive than we would have liked, but we got a really good deal on the car rental and hotels. Canada needs more competition in the airline industry and a few new companies have been popping up over the years. We flew Flair, so our base fare was pretty reasonable, but they really gouge you on baggage fees. To save money, we paid for one full size carry-on between us and each took a personal item. It was a bit of a struggle, but my 34L Gossamer Gear backpack is able to fit in the personal item sizer, so I’ll definitely be taking advantage of that in the future to save money!

We made it to Calgary and after an argument at the rental agency, picked up our rental car. The company tried to force us to rent an AWD SUV when they learned we were driving to Canmore. It’s a good practice to have winter tires or minimum mud and snow tires for winter driving, but they’re not strictly required on Highway 1 to Banff (but if you’re going beyond Lake Louise, you do need them). They were adamant we had to have AWD and we continually declined. It’s a tactic I’m sure they use (successfully) on a lot of tourists to make extra money. In this case, they were sold out of the economy car we had booked and were trying to force us to pay for the AWD SUV they were going to give us anyway (with mud and snow tires). So we ended up with it at no extra charge through sheer force of will. But I thought the whole charging strategy was really scummy and the agent was pretty rude when we weren’t co-operative, so I’m definitely calling out Enterprise!

After a quick sleep at the Super 8 airport hotel, we were up early to drive to Canmore. I have a few friends that live in Calgary and we planned to meet them at Lake Minnewanka for a hike. The weather forecast looked great and was primarily sun and clouds with no precipitation, but it was really overcast and it started raining just before we got to the parking lot. The rain quickly turned to a wet snow, which wasn’t super appealing. Our friends blamed us for bringing the poor weather from “raincouver”, but I think they were just exaggerating how it’s “always sunny in Calgary” – sounds like Alberta propaganda to me!

It wasn’t the best conditions by a long shot and the clouds were really low, obscuring the view, but we went on the hike anyway. It became less about the views and more about catching up with friends. Plus, I finally got to meet my internet friend, Kristine, for the first time and the trip somehow ended with her convincing me to go on another trip with her later this year!

The snow was definitely nicer than the rain, but it made for a cold hike! We were aiming to stop for lunch at a campground, but eventually we’d had enough of the wet, cold weather, and pulled into the woods for a lunch break. After that we turned around to return to the parking lot, tracking ~8km in total.

But we wouldn’t be deterred by a bit of wet weather! We drove to Canmore and stopped in a café for hot drinks and snacks, before heading to our hotel to take advantage of the hot tub! We had a nice soak before saying goodbye to our friends, who returned to Calgary. Me and Carolyn decided to go for a nice meal at Fergus & Bix, which was easily the highlight of the trip food-wise! We had to make the most of having access to Alberta’s famous beef, so I had the most delicious blue cheese burger and Carolyn had a steak salad.

While we mostly had hiking in mind when we booked this trip, both of us were in need of a good break, so we decided to take it easy on our second day. We slept in and then walked into town for brunch, before going for a walk along the Bow River. It was a gorgeous blue sky, sunny day, though quite crisp. We had a nice long walk and spent the afternoon shopping around town. I managed to show some self restraint in Café Books, which is a great little indie bookshop, but my resolve completely crumpled in Canmore Tea Co. I’m a pretty big tea enthusiast and try to get most of my teas from local shops. Canmore and Banff Tea Co are both great and have several teas that I absolutely love! So I stocked up on my favourites and then picked out a few new ones to try. Carolyn assisted me by holding all my purchases while loudly proclaiming how crazy I was for spending so much money on tea.

Before it got dark, we decided to go for a little drive around town to some shorter viewpoints. We walked out to the Three Sisters Viewpoint, which has a great view of the iconic trio that Canmore is known for (the little, middle, and big sister mountains). We continued our drive up Spray Lakes Road to take some photos of Rundle and Ha Ling Peak, before returning to town for dinner. We ended up eating supper at Tavern 1883, which was really tasty, but definitely more pub vibes. But nothing that couldn’t be remedied with another trip to the hotel hot tub!

On our final day, we pretty much just returned to Calgary to get a noon flight back to Vancouver. So overall, it was a very short trip and it seemed like we didn’t do a whole lot, but I really enjoyed just kicking back and spending some time with Carolyn. It was nice not having a big itinerary planned and we pretty much did whatever we felt like. I’ve been to Canmore many times, but it was Carolyn’s first time, so we did a lot of the classic touristy things. Our friends recommended a lot of other great hikes to us, but given that we’d never even seen a lot of the viewpoints before, we were happy to take it easy. I love spending time in the Rocky Mountains and this was the only trip I made there in 2024, so I’m glad we were able to fit in a little getaway!

Hollyburn Chalet Winter Camping

February 21, 2024July 11, 2024 / Maria / 2 Comments

This isn’t a trip that will be replicable for many people, but it was a very cool experience that I had for the first time this winter! Many people don’t know that there is a secret cabin community hiding out on the side of Hollyburn Mountain, near Cypress. There are about 100 small cabins, with some as old as 100 years, that make up the Hollyburn Cabin Community. The cabins were constructed by pioneers and ski enthusiasts and at it’s peak there were ~200 cabins on the mountain. Many have fallen into disrepair, but those that remain represent a unique piece of heritage conservation and the only remaining ski community on the north shore.

Most of these cabins are privately owned, but two of them are owned by Girl Guides and Boy Scouts of Canada (as two separate entities). The Girl Guide Cabin is known as Hollyburn Chalet or Burnabee Chalet. The chalet is very popular among units in the winter, and last year we decided it would be a great trip to take our Trex unit up to the cabin for a weekend. In order to secure a spot, I attended an orientation about the cabin in late 2022, and then returned again in late 2023 for the annual work party. Volunteers assist in the maintenance of the cabin on an annual basis and those who participate are given priority booking.

So that landed us a spot at the cabin in early January! It’s a ~20 minute walk to the cabin in summer conditions and ~45 minutes in snow with gear. The cabin is stocked with firewood every year at the work party, but we still have to bring up some compressed logs to burn overnight to conserve firewood, along with all our equipment and food. All the trex members had their backpacks with their equipment, and we took turns towing up 3 sleds of equipment. We had snowshoes for the hike in, but microspikes would have been sufficient and it was a bit of a struggle climbing up to the cabin.

The biggest challenge we faced is that it was very cold on our visit! It’s an el niño year, so it’s been uncharacteristically warm in the lower mainland and there is limited snow in the mountains. But we did get a very big snowfall in the city in early January, followed by a deep freeze right when we were going to the cabin. It was -17 degrees overnight on our first night in the cabin, so while we were excited that we didn’t have to worry about rain, we were concerned about staying warm.

It was a bit of a chaotic walk up to the cabin because it was dark and very cold standing around, but we couldn’t move very fast with our sleds, which were heavy with firewood. At first I was at the back of the group and it was quite cold because of the pace. But when I took my turn pulling the sled, I warmed up a lot from the effort! It took us ~40 minutes to get to the cabin, and while we were thrilled to arrive, it’s still very cold in the cabin.

Hollyburn Chalet actually turned 100 years old this year, so while it is a historic cabin, it does have propane lightning and 2 wood stoves (one for heat and one for cooking). The cabin has a nice kitchen and eating area on the main floor, so we didn’t have to bring any dishes or pots with us, as well as there are lots of chairs for sitting around the wood stove. It’s totally empty in the loft, which sleeps ~25 people. So it is a pretty big space, which means it takes a while to heat it.

We arrived just before 7pm and immediately got the fire going. Everyone kept their winter clothes on and we learned some choreographed dance moves to keep warm! We had hot chocolate and s’mores for mug-up and a lot of the trex were anxious to go to bed. Our starting point was -17 degrees, so even after a few hours, the cabin was still below zero and our water bottles were. We were afraid to send everyone to bed too early because most of their sleeping bags were only rated for -5 degrees, so we stayed up late playing games around the fire. We made everyone a hot water bottle for their bedrolls and when it finally hit zero degrees in the cabin (around 11:30pm), we figured we’d be warm enough in our sleeping bags to go to bed.

I slept near the fire on the first floor to keep it going all night. I was convinced that some of the trex were going to be cold, but because they were all sleeping above the stove in the loft, it did eventually warm up upstairs, though it was still quite cool in the morning (only around 10 degrees). We all slept in because of the late night and then enjoyed hash browns for breakfast!

Our morning was dedicated to the chores of running the cabin. It was still very cold, but it was a beautiful sunny day outside! Hollyburn Chalet is set up with several large pots for melting snow water on the wood stove and we melted lots of drinking water in the morning and split wood to re-stock all the wood supply. We always leave everything the way we found it or better, which includes leaving all the wood boxes and kindling boxes full, so we overstuffed them so we’d only have to fill them once. There’s a very fancy wood splitter at the cabin, so everyone had a turn splitting wood.

We spent an hour playing in the snow before lunch and tried to break up our outdoor time since it was so cold. We had a delicious tortellini soup for lunch and managed to get the indoor temperature up to 14 degrees. After lunch, we decided to go for a walk to explore the other cabins in the area. Like I said, it was a gorgeous sunny day and we hiked a few kilometres to a lookout, checking out all the unique cabins and looking for big trees.

Dinner was macaroni and chili, followed by some more games. Our unit is really into games (which I love), our favourite is Godfather, which involves everyone picking a character and trying to win others to your team by guessing their character. But on this trip we also tried 4 on a couch, which is a game I used to play in high school where you swap identities with each other and try and get your whole team sitting on the designated couch. We also played a game I know as Monikers, which is a mix of catchphrase and charades. We didn’t play the board game and just made up our own words and put them in a big bowl, but I’m not sure what name the game actually goes by. It was a big hit!

The highlight of day 2 was our mug-up, for which we decided to lug up chocolate and fruit for fondue! We had a big pot of chocolate and cream, and then strawberries, bananas, marshmallows, rice crispies, and apple slices for dipping. It was definitely a hit! We managed to get the indoor temperature up to 20 degrees by the second night and we were finally able to take off our jackets. So it was much warmer going to bed, but cooled off in the night because I slept so well and forgot to stoke the fire as much. I woke up at 4am and had to pretty much re-make it in the middle of the night, but overall it was a lot warmer inside and we were able to keep the cabin comfortable.

Our last morning was dedicated to clean up. We got some photos outside the cabin and had a quick 15 minute walk to return to the parking lot. We opted to take the snowshoes down in the sled rather than wear them (they are quite bulky), and since it’s all downhill, we made pretty quick time back to the campsite.

So while we definitely had some adversity to overcome with the temperatures, it was a fantastic trip! I was really concerned on the first night, but our hot water bottles worked super well and no one complained about being cold overnight. It was the first time backpacking for several of the trex, and even though it’s a short distance, it’s in pretty challenging conditions (dark, cold, snowy), so I thought they all did really well! The chalet is a really lovely piece of history and I feel lucky that I had the opportunity to experience it through Girl Guides. Some units go up there every year; we’re not planning for it to be a regular thing for us, but I would definitely go back in the future and think it would be fun to go up there in the summer as well (when it’s much easier to get a booking).

Even if you’re just going for a walk, it’s pretty cool to check out the Hollyburn Cabin Community, because there’s some really interesting cabins up there and it makes for a fun day hike!