Trip Report and Guide

Starting the hike

You can start anywhere you want in Vancouver and choose any route to get to the trailhead of the Howe Sound Crest Trail. The route I chose sticks to the scenic highlights popular with tourists: False Creek, English bay, the Stanley Park Seawall, Capilano River Park, and the Cleveland Dam. From the dam it’s mostly the Baden Powell Trail to the Cypress Mountain ski hill where you will find the Howe Sound Crest Trailhead.

Timing your departure from Vancouver is important. If you do a leisurely late morning or lunchtime start, you likely won’t make it to a place where you can camp legally by the end of the day. The first place you can legally camp wilderness-style (wild, backcountry, wilderness or dispersed) is on the Howe Sound Crest Trail after the Cypress Mountain ski area. I’ve labelled the first campable spot with the first waypoint after Cypress. If you leave right after an early breakfast and hike a fast pace, you’ll make it there. If you leave late or hike slowly, you may have to stealth camp after leaving the West Vancouver suburban area and before entering Cypress Provincial Park. Look for the waypoint labelled “Leave (sub)urban area, enter forest.“ This forest is city-owned municipal land, and it’s not legal to camp there. But I really can’t imagine anybody caring if you pitch a tent at dark and leave at first light. It’s just joggers and walkers from the British Properties neighborhood passing through here (it’s one of the richest neighborhoods in Canada, so they won’t be robbing you). Just make sure to camp far from the houses. The forest here is not great for camping, but you’ll eventually find a spot to pitch a tent. I had good weather and no insects, so I put my inflatable mat on some bare rock and cowboy camped. This place is far enough from the city for there to be no safety problems like you would get stealth camping in a city park.

The Howe Sound Crest Trail (HSCT)

This trail is in Cypress Provincial Park, but no permits or camping fees are required. Just show up and start hiking.

This is not a safe or easy trail, especially if it is raining or if it recently rained. The middle section has some rough scrambling. It’s the most difficult part of the entire hike, from Vancouver to Pemberton. It’s only 30km, but it feels much longer. Watch some videos of the HSCT to get an idea of how difficult it is: one, two, three, four, five, six. You can find some more detailed trip reports online.

The first formal established camping area on the HSCT is at Magnesia Meadows. There are plenty of places to pitch your tent and there is an emergency shelter. It is free and there is no need to reserve a spot. Most people on the trail are day-hikers or trailer runners, so there was only one other tent when I camped there. It is OK here, but I liked the looks of the camping at Brunswick Lake more (a 2nd night destination for the faster hikers).

If you read trip reports and guides online you will notice people discussing drinking water difficulties on the HSCT. It really is a “crest“ trail on top of a ridge. So you won’t be crossing streams or finding lakes on the ridge top. You can fill up on water at Cypress Mountain outside the public restrooms, and you should probably take lots. I drank up as much as I could and took three liters. But that wasn’t enough. So after Unnecessary Mountain I dropped down off the trail to fill up on water from a pond - you can see my waypoints labelled. Legally, you have left Cypress Provincial Park and entered the restricted Capilano Watershed where recreation and travel is prohibited to protect Vancouver’s drinking water. A person in a position of authority/enforcement told me that if they saw a hiker getting water here they could not care less. They just don’t want them camping or defecating here or taking their dog swimming.

If you are traumatized upon your arrival at Magnesia Meadows, don’t worry - the difficult sections are finished, with just a few minor scrambles remaining.

If I did this hike again. I would do a very early start from Vancouver, camp on the HSCT about 1.5km after the trailhead and then make it to the Brunswick Lake camp spots the next day.

Porteau Cove to Britannia Beach

Right before the end of the HSCT trail there is a waypoint labelled “Lead-free water.“ That’s because the drinking water at the nearby Porteau Cove campground was found to be lead contaminated. So fill up at the waypoint I labelled.

There is a campground at Porteau Cove Provincial Park, but it was full when I passed through. For those who camp at Magnesia or Brunswick, you will be here too early in the day to camp anyways. But if you are interested in an early stop, then consider reserving a spot online.

After exiting at the HSCT trail parking lot, you cross the highway and then illegally cross the railroad tracks to get onto a rock beach that leads to Porteau Cove Park. There are well beaten paths here, so you will not be the first or last lawbreaker. For the law abiding citizen, a very unpleasant road walk on a very busy highway is the alternative.

After Porteau Cove it is an illegal walk on the railroad tracks. This railway track is, despite the railway company abandoning freight traffic on this line north of Squamish, still an active railroad (but with seldom traffic). The highway is again the alternative.

Next up is the golf course at Furry Creek. Walkers pass through the course, and the operators have maintained public access to the beach area. They are friendly, just make sure to observe golf etiquette. If golfers are getting ready to tee off (hit the ball), wait until they do so and then walk past the tee. After the Furry Creek footbridge there is a section where you need to do this to not be in range of a poorly hit golf ball when you walk the path.

After the golf course it is again a walk on the railway tracks. Taking the long tunnel is your choice. There may or may not be a way to climb and bushwhack up and around and back down to the railway, I don’t know.

Right before Britannia Beach there is a nice hamburger stand, and in the little tiny townsite there are some restaurants, a small grocery store with pizza, and a public restroom where you can fill up on drinking water. This is an old industrial mining area, so I don’t trust the streams in the area.

If you’ve felt like a lawless bandit based on your railway walking, after Britannia Beach you will see how common it is. There were many people parked at Britannia Beach who at the same time as me walked down the train tracks to get to some wild camping and climbing spots. The climbers have built a full-on sauna in there and the trails are very well beaten. The railway tracks are a thoroughfare. I camped at a quiet spot after the sauna, and woke up to seals on the rock beach below my tent after mistaking them for bears.

Britannia Beach to the Chief

The next day was a short railway walk before leaving the tracks and heading uphill towards Murrin Provincial Park. There were no freight trains the day before, at night or in the morning. But note that, in addition to freight trains, the Rocky Mountaineer tourist train does occasionally pass through. They have plans for a 2026 season, but it seems that this service will end once CN abandons its lease and ceases maintenance. It’s up to you to research whether or not you can expect trains on this line, and when.

After leaving the tracks you will have a couple of scrambling spots with rope-assists put in place by the rock climbers (who are all over this area). Murrin Provincial Park has no drinking water nor any camping spots. After crossing Highway 99 you start up the Petgill Lake Trail (again, a few easy scrambles). There are some small lakeside primitive camp spots (free, no permits required).

After Petgill Lake you will eventually get on an old road that has been recently cleared of brush. This makes for an quick trip from the start of this road to the Sea to Sky Gondola Summit where you will find public restrooms and plenty of food, from 9am-5pm. Note that they open your beer can so that you can’t take a can or two with you….

After the gondola you should head to the viewpoint before getting onto a faint, vague path through the forest. It appears to be an approach hike trail for rock climbers. I don’t suggest going into the forest if it is starting to get dark, you won’t be able to find your way easily. If that’s the case, take the Shannon Forest Service Road that is farther uphill.

Eventually you join the “Mischief” mountain bike trail, and it is fast and fun on lots of slickrock and with nice open views. Watch out for fast riders coming from behind. Hikers are allowed on this trail.

Then you enter the Stawamus Chief Provincial Park and wild camping is prohibited. It was getting late in the day and I wanted to get to the town of Squamish as I had reserved accommodation, so I took a fast low route. Somehow, despite being born in Squamish, I still haven’t hiked the top of the Chief. But you should follow the GPS track and do the Chief (the Stawamus Chief mountain). Since I didn’t hike it (I will in the future), use this trip report as a guide. And download and overlay his GPS track in addition to mine, as it’s probably more accurate than the trail trace in my GPX file. He has lots of photos to show the difficulty: rungs, chains, ladders, ropes, etc… But it doesn’t look that hard. You can also see many comments at Alltrails on the First, Second and Third Peak Trails.

At the bottom of the mountain is the Stawamus Chief Provincial Park campground. $10 tent sites, first come first serve, no reservations. But I assume most people who hiked all the way from Vancouver will be more interested in a bed and hot shower in town. I stayed at the Squamish Adventure Inn hostel. It’s quite good with great facilities and was much cheaper than the Vancouver hostel.

Squamish to Garibaldi Provincial Park

Before leaving Squamish (or maybe even before Squamish) you need to start thinking about a backcountry camping reservation at Garibaldi. A reservation and fee is required. You want a spot at the high demand Garibaldi Lake campground, not the Taylor Meadows or Helm Creek campgrounds. If you are timed to arrived at Garibaldi Lake on Saturday, you are definitely out of luck. When I looked at reservations online the lakeside camp was fully booked long in advance on Saturdays by weekend hikers. Go to this reservation website, and select the “Backcountry“ category, then select “Backcountry reservation“ at top and find Garibaldi in the drop-down menu. Select a date and you will see availability for the various campsites. I waited until I had left Squamish and by that time my preferred campsite was no longer available. If you can’t get the lakeside camp, you should still make the short side trip to visit, as this is where the best lake view is.

Squamish has good resupply options (supermarkets, Walmart, etc.). There are even some outdoors sports stores where you can track down dehydrated meals.

The walk out of Squamish is leisurely. I left late in the morning and stopped for pizza and donuts in Garibaldi Highlands (not the provincial park, just the part of Squamish with this name). Next is a hike through Alice Lake Provincial Park, which is too close to Squamish to be considered as a camping stop. After a brief road walk you will enter the Brohm Lake Interpretive Forest area. You can definitely go swimming here.

After going downhill you pass by the privately-owned Paradise Valley Campground. It’s still too close to Squamish to be a stop for the day. If you don’t want to go into the private campground to get drinking water, you may want to consider taking water at Brohm Lake. Paradise Valley is dry, and the rivers and creeks you cross are either very silty, dried up or full of dead stinking rotten salmon. I didn’t find good water until Starvation Lake after leaving Paradise Valley.

Paradise Valley is full of “no trespassing” signs and threatening signs saying they will call the police on illegal campers. This is because of tourists who build camp fires when the fire danger is extreme almost every summer. The locals don’t want to die in a forest fire.

Paradise Valley was my least favorite trail section, as it is just a road walk in an area without good scenery. But you can quickly get through it. I camped near the end of the road at the free riverside drive-up camp spots (informal with no infrastructure, no fees or reservations). Most spots were taken by car campers, but I did find a good spot despite arriving in the dark. See my waypoints. Note that the Cheakamus River water smells like dead fish in the fall, so don’t expect to be drinking the water here. In late September I could hear the spawning salmon jumping and thrashing around all night, but I didn’t see the bears that I was expecting. You can also camp right after Starvation Lake.

The road soon ends after the riverside camping and you get on the Sea to Sky Trail (built with bikepackers in mind). After a short stretch on this trail you then hike down onto the mostly disused railroad tracks (this trail ends at the highway). The railway tracks give you a great view of the Cheakamus Canyon.

After getting off the rail tracks the area near the Chance Creek Forest Service road is/was used by Whistler-area squatters and van campers and is disgusting: garbage and old clothing strewn about and abandoned trailers and RVs. Don’t camp here.

Then it’s a road walk to the Rubble Creek Trailhead in Garibaldi Provincial Park. If everything works out and you can reserve a spot at the Garibaldi Lake campground, I suggest the next day to a side trip hike up to the Black Tusk. It is the hard lava core of a volcano. To get into the top of the peak involves a sketchy scramble (i.e., leave your heavy pack at the bottom). Search online for trip reports. But you can hike up close to get a good view without summiting.

After descending from the pass, I recommend a side trip to Cheakamus Lake if you have the time. It’s not as spectacular as Garibaldi Lake, but it’s still a nice spot to sit and take a break. Farther down the trail you reach the outskirts of Whistler and the HI Hostel. The alternate hostel is the Whistler Lodge Hostel. The $3 per night (breakfast included) hostel on Alta Lake that my mother managed (and where I lived as a baby) shut down long ago. The site was purchased by the local government and gentrified into an arts and sailing center.

Whistler Walk-Thru

This 27km is mostly on paved hike/bike trails and then on well built hiking/biking trails. I can’t objectively say what Whistler is, because I was raised here when I was very young and then would regularly be in Whistler as my father worked here. I count as a cynical jaded former local, so I think it’s a total waste of time being in Whistler - a sentiment not shared by the tourists who really seem to enjoy their time here. Search online for what you can do here, and decide whether you want to stay for more than one night. For me it was just a stop to charge batteries and buy enough food to make it to Pemberton. The 27km route ends after the last neighborhood - the seemingly abandoned Wedgemount neighborhood (it looks like the luxury housing development project here has hit a dead end).

Whistler to Pemberton

I’ve travelled between Pemberton and Whistler hundreds of times, but always on the highway. I’ve only ever briefly hiked, mountain biked and mushroom-picked in some areas near the highway, so this was my first time fully on foot between these two towns. I was surprised. I actually liked it.

There is not much to say that isn’t already in the waypoints, except for on the river crossing. It was very easy and safe for me in late September. And in the 1990s I also crossed the river several times in multiple locations (but in mushroom season, not mid summer). How high and swift the water is in mid-summer, I do not know. If it’s bad, there is a road walk alternate that is obvious.

The Nairn Falls Park campground is an option to stay at before Pemberton. I saw plenty of empty spots when I walked through in late September, but July and August will be busier.

After Nairn I chose the “Lumpy’s Epic“ mountain bike trail, built in memoriam for Geoff “Lumpy” Leidel. I rode with him when I was in high school (or recently after), and it was the first time I realized that there were riders out there who were much, much better than me. It’s a nice trail with some nice views. My route then diverts over to One Mile Lake, where I spent hundred of days swimming in the 1980s summers. The water is much colder than in the 1980s, as glacial creek water is now diverted into the lake.

After the lake, you’re in Pemberton. Read info above on accommodation and transportation out of Pemberton.

I will eventually provide full information on an extended route north of Pemberton. Preliminary information here.