Hiking Skywalk South

October 27, 2026October 27, 2026 / Maria / Leave a comment

Iceberg Lake is a popular trail in Whistler that’s ~15km round trip with 900m of elevation gain. The trail hikes up through the forest north of Whistler, exiting to a beautiful alpine meadow and a steep climb up to the lake. It’s nestled at the base of the mountain and regularly has bergy bits floating in it, making for a cold swim and scenic photos.

The first time I hiked to Iceberg Lake was in August 2022. Rather than do the there-and-back trail to the lake, we opted to do a loop along the Skywalk North trail. This does add considerable distance to the hike, but not a lot more elevation gain. We tracked just over 1000m of gain along the entire Skywalk North trail over 21km. It’s a beautiful trail and I highly recommend adding the extra kms to avoid hiking in and out on the same trail.

Adriana wanted to hike Iceberg Lake in mid September and we opted to do the Skywalk South trail this time. It’s similar to the North trail, but I’d say it’s a little more challenging. I tracked 21.5km and over 1200m of elevation gain, so there is a bit more climbing. Both trails share the main trail to Iceberg Lake, but Skywalk North is accessed from Mountain View Drive and heads North from Iceberg Lake, whereas Skywalk South is accessed from Alpine Way and heads south from Iceberg Lake. I hiked both trails clockwise, but I think I would recommend hiking Skywalk North counterclockwise instead. The direct trail to iceberg lake is the easiest way to get there, the Skywalk trails are quite steep. I prefer to hike the steepest part uphill (I have bad knees), so I recommend hiking out on the Iceberg Lake Trail.

Both trails are beautiful and it’s hard to differentiate between them. Skywalk North is a bit steeper, but has a second, warmer lake (Screaming Cat Lake) where you can swim, whereas Skywalk South has incredible views looking down to Whistler and an optional extra summit to a small peak below Rainbow Mountain (we didn’t bother). Since I already wrote about Skywalk North, I’ll focus on Skywalk South for the rest of this post.

The trailhead to Skywalk South is on Alpine Way. There’s no parking lot and you do have to park along the street, so pay close attention to the parking signs, because it’s not allowed everywhere. Be prepared to do some road walking to the trailhead which starts with a long section of trail on an old FSR that is in good condition and easy to follow. After approximately 3km, you reach a junction where you can take a left onto the Skywalk South trail, otherwise you will continue directly to Iceberg Lake. We opted to get the hardest part of the hike done early, which is why we veered left onto the Skywalk South trail. Watch out for mountain bikers in this section as they do use part of this trail as a connector.

At first, the trail is quite flat as it traverses along the backside of the mountain, but eventually it gets steeper. It’s not a technical trail and it is nice to have the shade from the trees on a hot day. After a few kilometres, you will start to pop out into some of the alpine meadows and the trail gets less steep before a final push to the high point. Once we got to the highest point, we stopped for lunch underneath the optional trail to the summit. I’d recommend pushing just a little bit further. Past the junction, there is a small pond that looked great for swimming, and past that there are fantastic views down to Whistler. I think this would be the best place to stop for a break, but we just took some photos instead.

After that, you have to hike back down towards Iceberg Lake. It’s nestled in the side of the mountain, so you can’t see it until the very end, but there’s beautiful views of the alpine. This section is a little bit tricky and hard to follow, so pay close attention. You have to hike down a boulder field, which is steep, but not too challenging. Our problem was that we ended up getting off the trail at some point and by the time we realized, it was a bit tricky to navigate back to the trail. We managed, but my advice is to keep a close eye on the GPS track. It’s a wide open area, so it seems deceptively safe, but once you get off trail, it is not easy to get back on it. It’s easy to get cliffed out, so avoid having to backtrack.

Eventually the trail merges with the Iceberg Lake trail. There’s an outhouse at the junction and a beautiful meadow along the river. Follow the river and you’ll hike back up through one final boulder field before arriving at the lake. This is a steep section as well, but the trail isn’t hard to follow.

The sun sets early over the mountain behind the lake, so if you arrive late in the day, you may be in the shade. We arrived just in time, right before the sun dropped behind the mountain, and we were able to go for a quick swim before losing the light. We still had lots of daylight, but the temperature dropped very quickly after the sun disappeared.

The only part that sucks about the Skywalk South trail is that you have to re-do the hike back to the junction. On the Skywalk North trail, it’s one continuous loop that hikes north from the lake. We walked back to the outhouse and then had a nice walk along the Iceberg Lake trail to the car. I enjoyed the section in the forest, but once we rejoined the lower part of the trail along the old road, I quickly lost interest.

It’s a long hike and I found it pretty challenging on my knees for the last section. It’s pretty boring along the road and it felt so much longer on the way down. Me and Adriana both ended up more or less hobbling off the trail for the last 3kms because our knees were so done. Since it’s such a long trail, make sure you give yourself lots of time and daylight, especially if you’re going later in the season. It took me 9 hours to do the full Skywalk North loop in 2022 and 10 hours to do the full Skywalk South loop in 2026.

Both trails are beautiful and I think they offer a lot of extra views that you won’t get if you just do the Iceberg Lake trail. I won’t be in a rush to go back now that I’ve done both, but they did offer different enough perspectives that I didn’t mind returning for the Skywalk South trail. I highly recommend both!

Hiking Cirque Lake

August 31, 2025August 21, 2025 / Maria / 2 Comments

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!

Hiking Decker Tarn

August 24, 2025August 18, 2025 / Maria / Leave a comment

There’s lots of great hiking in Whistler, but it’s easy to forget about it sometimes because of the steep price of the gondola. I buy the 5-day edge card every year, which comes with one free summer sightseeing pass, so I’ve been trying to take more advantage of this free day over the past few years. In 2023, I used it to hike the High Note Trail on Whistler when I backpacked to Russet Lake for a night. This year, I returned to check out the hiking trails on Blackcomb.

There’s lots of unmarked scrambling available on Blackcomb, but if you want to stick to the marked trails, you can knock out most of them in one day along the Decker Tarn Loop Trail. You start by taking the Blackcomb gondola up to Rendez-Vous and then heading into the alpine trail zone. We started by taking the Alpine Loop Trail (#12) onto the Overlord Trail (#13). If you want minimal elevation gain, stick to the Overlord Trail for the rest of the hike. It will take you all the way to Decker Tarn, which has a fantastic viewpoint of Overlord Mountain.

The trail to the viewpoint is ~4.5km, so it doesn’t take too long. If you want to make it a bit more challenging and enjoy some extra viewpoints, you can add in both the Lakeside Loop (#15) and the Decker Loop (#16), which is what I did. The Lakeside Loop hikes up to a little pond, while the Decker Loop has the most elevation gain and hikes up to a viewpoint. The visibility was really poor in the morning on the day I did the hike, so unfortunately, I missed a lot of the views. We enjoyed lunch at the top of the Decker Loop and the clouds started to lift in the afternoon, providing sneak peeks of the backcountry.

I like to do the harder terrain first, so we did the two climbs on the way to Overlord Viewpoint, and fortunately, by the time we made it there, we could see a lot more of the views. We stopped for a second break on some of the big rocks next to Decker Tarn. We debated continuing further and hiking up Decker Mountain (there’s no formal trail, but you can do a scramble to the top), but ultimately decided to head over to Whistler to see the skybridge instead.

The only trails on Blackcomb that we didn’t do were Marmot Trail (#14), mostly because I didn’t see it, and the Blackcomb Burn, which is a series of trails climbing from the base to Rendez-Vous. This is your only option if you don’t want to pay for the gondola. Despite the poor morning views, we still had a great time exploring the trails on Blackcomb because the wildflowers appeared to be approaching peak bloom as we were visiting! I love all the colourful flowers that grow in the backcountry and have been working on my identification skills over the past few summers, so I had fun looking at all the different wildflowers.

After lunch, we took the Peak to Peak gondola over to Whistler, followed by a ride on Peak Chair to the top. There’s now a bridge and lookout on the top of Peak Chair that have incredible views of the surrounding mountains. Even though I get to go up there in the winter, I do enjoy comparing the summer conditions. I don’t find the trails to be too busy on Whistler, it’s mostly locals, but the crowds around the gondola infrastructure and the skybridge are primarily tourists and it can get pretty crowded.

All in all, I had a fun day. We didn’t pick the best day to do the hike since we spent the first 3 hours of the day in the clouds, but we still managed to see all the views and it didn’t cost us anything to ride to the top. Personally, I wouldn’t pay extra for this experience since I ski there every year, but it’s a nice little perk to be able to check out some of the alpine views in the summer. If you’re a local and don’t want to pay for the gondola, there’s so many other hikes to choose from, but for the tourists, I think it’s definitely worth it! Maybe I’ll return sometime in the future for Decker Mountain!