Trophy Meadows

I’ve lived in BC for over 12 years now. I started ranking my top 10 favourite hikes in the southwest part of the province in Fall 2016 and I have been creating a new list every two years since then. By 2024, I had 5 lists featuring a total of 50 hikes, so I narrowed it down to a special list of my overall top 10 hikes in the last decade. I’d like to continue the trend, so welcome to Part VI of this list, featuring my favourite hikes of the past two years.

10. Pump Peak

I’m surprised it’s taken 12 years for this hike to make the list, but there’s always a shorter hike close to home that never fails to surprise me. Despite hiking to Brockton Peak many times over the years, I only hiked to Pump Peak for the first time in 2026. It’s located very close to Vancouver in Mount Seymour Provincial Park and is a great option for a sunset/sunrise hike, or a short overnight. (8km, 400m gain)

9. Tricouni Berg Lake

Tricouni Berg Lake (not to be confused with Tricouni Lake or Iceberg Lake) is a newly popular hike past Squamish. It only came on my radar pretty recently, but it’s a fun day hike or overnight trip with a huge payoff at the lake. Turn off Highway 99 onto Chance Creek FSR and follow the Chance Mainline (~8.5km) as far as you can go. It’s a gravel road that most vehicles can handle. From there, park and hike up to a beautiful alpine lake nestled under Tricouni Peak. (10km, 500m gain)

8. Brandywine Mountain

Brandywine Meadows made my very first top 10 list in 2016, but having recently hiked closer to the mountain summit, I’m adding the mountain to this list. There are two trailheads for this hike, a lower one accessible by any vehicle, and an upper one accessible by 4×4. I really recommend the upper lot if you’re hiking to Brandywine Peak. This is a beautiful hike through the meadows and up and over the side of the mountain. Some wayfinding is required over the mountain and it is extremely steep, so only recommended for experienced hikers. I haven’t actually summited, but enjoyed hiking up the ridge. (10km, 800m gain)

7. Golden Ears Peak

This is another hike that I can’t believe had to wait 12 years to make my top 10 list. This is a beast of a trail, so despite its close proximity to Vancouver, it took me a long time to finally work up the nerve to hike it. Located in Golden Ears Park, this is an iconic trail that overlooks Pitt Lake and the surrounding mountains. There’s over 1500m of elevation to summit the mountain, so it’s very steep and should only be attempted by experienced hikers. You can complete it as a day hike, or reserve a campsite to spend the night at the scenic Panorama Campsite. (24km, 1600m gain)

6. San Josef Bay / Raft Cove

San Josef Bay and Raft Cove are both located on the far north coast of Vancouver Island in Cape Scott and Raft Cove Provincial Parks. Both hikes require a long drive on gravel road from Port Hardy (65km+), so they are not easy to access, but well worth the drive. Both hikes are short and visit iconic sandy beaches, but San Josef Bay is a fairly straightforward flat hike, while Raft Cove is fairly technical. San Josef Bay has stunning sea stacks that you can visit at low tide, but it has the downside of being much busier than Raft Cove. (San Jo: 6km, 0m gain; Raft Cove: 7km, 100m gain)

5.Windy Pass / Camel Pass (South Chilcotin)

South Chilcotin Provincial Park was featured on both my 2024 list and my overall best hikes list, so I was excited to return to the park in 2025, this time accessing it from Taylor Creek. I spent 3 days hiking and camping in the park, visiting both Windy Pass and Camel Pass. Camel Pass is accessible as a day hike, but you’d need to backpack in order to access Windy Pass. Both are stunning alpine features of the park. (20-40km, significant gain)

4. Trophy Meadows / Moul Falls (Wells Gray)

This is my last double feature, I promise. I know Wells Gray is a bit of a stretch to be considered Southwestern BC (it isn’t), but I always stretch the bounds on this list to pretty much anything east of the Rockies. I couldn’t bear to leave Wells Gray off the list, often known as the waterfall park, it’s incredibly scenic. My favourite waterfall was Moul Falls, which has the special feature of being able to walk behind the waterfall. But I also loved hiking to Trophy Meadows to see the wildflowers, so I had to include both on the list. (Trophy: 6km, 300m gain; Moul: 6km, 150m gain)

3. Cirque Lake

This hike was a surprise contender for the list. I often just scroll around Gaia for the fun of it, looking for interesting trails, which is how I stumbled upon Cirque Lake. It’s a remote lake in the Callaghan Valley, which can only be accessed by driving 10km down a gravel road with water bars, paddling across Callaghan Lake, and then hiking up a steep trail to Cirque Lake. It’s not a long paddle, nor is it a long hike, but added together, it is a bit of effort to get to the lake. Once there, enjoy the gorgeous alpine views. (4km RT paddle; 4km, 250m gain hike)

2. Cathedral Rim Trail

Cathedral Provincial Park is a stunning, some would say spiritual, park south of Princeton. It’s just far enough away from Vancouver that it’s not too busy and the long access into the park restricts visitors. You can’t do this hike as a day trip and I visited as a 4 day backpacking trip. When operating, you can take a shuttle into the core area of the park and complete the beautiful Rim Trail, which features a number of rock monuments, as a day hike. The shuttle wasn’t running when I visited due to a recent forest fire, which is why I needed more time to hike an extra 15km each way in and out of the park. (Rim Trail: 18km, 900m gain)

1. West Coast Trail

I finally hiked the West Coast Trail and it’s not surprising that this lands as my number 1 hike of the last two years. The West Coast Trail is one of the most iconic trails in BC and is famous for a reason. It’s a multi day coastal hike that features roaring waterfalls, pristine beaches, and stunning sea stacks and sea caves. I completed the trail over 7 days and I would only recommend it to experienced hikers. There are over 100 ladders on this trail and it is a very challenging multi-day trek. But if you’re up for the challenge, you will be rewarded! (75km)

I recently posted about my experience backpacking the Berg Lake Trail in Mount Robson Provincial Park. While that was an adventure on its own, it wasn’t the end of my trip. We had a few more holidays left after finishing Berg Lake and we decided to visit Wells Gray Provincial Park on the way back to Vancouver.

Wells Gray Provincial Park is sometimes better known as “the waterfall park” and is popular both among British Columbians and tourists. It’s a large park located north of Clearwater, which is a ~5 hour drive from Vancouver. Like I said, the park is most well known for its waterfalls, but it’s also popular for paddling, with lots of water access campgrounds located on Murtle Lake and Clearwater Lake. It also has some really nice wildflower hikes. We didn’t have the time to do any paddling, but we set goals to see waterfalls and wildflowers!

My post on waterfalls is coming next week. After spending a night in Clearwater to shower and treat ourselves to real food, our first stop in Wells Gray was to visit Trophy Meadows along the trail to the Sheila Lake Wilderness Area. It was the first week of August, so it was a little past peak time for wildflowers, but there was still lots blooming in the meadows. Access to the trail is at the south end of the park, very close to Clearwater, so you don’t have to drive too far. Take a right onto Spahats Creek FSR, right after you pass the turnoff for Spahats Falls. From there, continue on the FSR to Road 201, which will take you to the trailhead. It’s a gravel road, so it’s not in great shape, but you should be able to make it all the way to the trailhead in most vehicles.

I’ve heard this trail is really popular and can get very busy, but we visited on a Friday, so the trail was pretty much empty. The trail starts uphill through the forest for ~2km, with over 200m of elevation gain, before you reach the start of the meadows. Once you reach the meadows, you can really take your time and customize the trail to whatever length you prefer. The meadows are huge and sweeping and completely covered in wildflowers. It’s very beautiful and you can see the surrounding mountain peaks in the background. There’s limited shade though, so I recommend going early to avoid the midday heat.

The meadows continue for ~2.5km and there is an outhouse located around the midpoint. Once you reach the end of the meadows (around 4.5km into the trail), it’s not much further to hike to the Sheila Lake Wilderness Campground. You can hike up to a little plateau that looks down on Sheila Lake. There’s ~20 tent pads located around the lake and it’s a really beautiful campsite. The tent pads are all in great shape and there’s a few small open-air shelters around the lake that have been constructed for cooking. There was only 1 tent set up when we visited, but I think it gets pretty busy on the weekend and we did see a few groups hiking in on our way out later in the day. It would be a really nice place to camp and I’d like to return someday for an overnight.

If you hike all the way to the end of the meadows, I recommend adding on the loop around Sheila Lake. There’s a few small tarns up there and it makes for a nice little circuit before heading back to the trailhead. It’s ~12km round trip if take this route. If you’re looking to do a shorter hike, then just hike through the meadows. If you’re looking for a longer hike, it is possible to continue a little further. We hadn’t planned to go further, but we were feeling strong after 6 days at Berg Lake, so we decided to hike up to Long Hill.

The alpine area at Sheila Lake is all very open and you can see Trophy Mountain and the surrounding peaks from the lake. There’s not really an official trail past the lake loop, but you can follow a faint trail up to the pass at the base of Long Hill. Some people will even route-find their way up Trophy Mountain, but we decided to target Long Hill for our lunch break. It added another 3km to our day (15km in total), as well as another 150m of elevation gain.

The trail continues past some more ponds and then gets pretty steep as you hike up the mountainside to Long Hill. There’s a few boulder fields that you have to guess your way across, but overall it’s not too difficult. There’s not much trail to follow, but it’s not hard to read the terrain. We stopped at the top to enjoy our lunch and the view of the alpine, though it was pretty windy. We returned via the campsite and of course, I had to go for a little swim in one of the ponds.

We saw a marmot on the way back and enjoyed the meadows just as much on the way down. Actually, I’d say we enjoyed them a little bit more on the way back as the lighting was better. Overall it was a 6 hour hike for us, which was a bit ambitious immediately after hiking 6 days to Berg Lake, but we really enjoyed it and I would definitely recommend. We did climb 650m of elevation across the 15km trail, but it’s not very steep at any point (except for the summit to Long Hill), so I’d say it’s a pretty accessible trail for most people.

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Canadian Outdoor Adventure and Travel Blog

Favourite Hikes in Southwestern BC: Part VI

Hiking Trophy Meadows