Bivouac or Bivy - Hike in Whistler Glossary

Bivouac or Bivy: a primitive campsite or simple, flat area where camping is possible. Traditionally used to refer to a very primitive campsite comprised of natural materials found on site such as leaves and branches or simply sleeping under the stars. Often used interchangeably with the word camp, however, bivouac implies a shorter, quicker and much more basic and naturally constructed camp setup.

Whistler & Garibaldi Park

Ablation Zone Accumulation Zone Adit Lakes Aiguille Alpine Zone Arête ARRTI Armchair Glacier The Barrier Battleship Islands Bears Bench Bergschrund Bivouac Cairn/Inukshuk Carter Chimney Cirque Cloudraker Coast Mountains Cordilleran Cornice Corrie Lake Crevasse Dalgleish Deadfall Emerald Forest Erratic The Fissile Fitzsimmons Creek Fitzsimmons Range Fyles Garibaldi Ranges Garibaldi Volcanic Belt Gemel Glacier Window Green Lake Hoary Marmot Krummholz Lithophyte Moraine Mt Garibaldi Mt James Turner Northair Mine Nunatuk Overlord Peak 2 Peak Roundhouse Rubble Creek Scree Spearhead Range Tarn The Table Townsend Usnea Winram

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For example, at the Taylor Meadows campground in Garibaldi Park, camping is the appropriately used term to describe sleeping there at night as you have constructed tent platforms and are using a tent. If instead you plan to sleep on the summit of Black Tusk, bivouacking would be more accurately used to describe what you are doing as you are not using a tent. In the warm summer months around Whistler you will find people bivouacking under the stars in various places with just a sleeping bag. Pier bivouacking is the memorable experience of spending the night on one of Whistler’s many piers on lakes such as Alta Lake, Lost Lake, and Alpha Lake. The wonderful, wooden tent platforms at Wedgemount Lake are also ideal places to bivouac under the stars. Along the world renowned West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island you will find several very interesting places previous hikers have bivouacked. From constructed driftwood shelters to idyllic, yet haunting caves, finding a refuge from the harsh west coast weather requires a lot of creativity. Finding one is always interesting as you feel like you have stumbled upon a hidden world. Whether in a dark, but inviting cave with a driftwood seats around the remnants of a campfire or a large, yet strangely cozy lean-to driftwood house with a million dollar view. Entering one of these always fills you with a sense of wonder about who was here before you and curiosity makes you peer into every dark corner.

For the most part bivouacking leaves no trace, but occasionally in Whistler you come across something more lasting. In the deep, dark, hidden forest trail A River Runs Through It, between Emerald Forest and Rainbow Park you occasionally stumble upon interesting curiosities. Just a few metres from the beautiful and winding Twentyone Mile Creek a large, fairly elaborate, yet nearly invisible lean to has been long abandoned. Thin, but long trees, about four metres long lay against a cross beam between two big trees. With the addition of a tarp over one side, you can imagine it being quite cozy as well as pretty big. Just a few steps away you have the crashing creek flowing past and a nice, clean rocky shore to make a campfire. A beautifully picturesque place to camp and an ancient, overgrown dirt road and various old and new trails lead in a few directions and out to civilization unexpectedly quickly.

In the winter months in Whistler, bivouacking can take the form of a snow cave or quinzee. People bivouacking in snow caves are pretty common around Whistler and in Garibaldi Park in the winter. Outside the Eflin Lakes Hut in Garibaldi Park in the winter you will usually find several snow caves dug out of the snowbank outside the hut. A quinzee is a low-tech version of an igloo that is made from a pile of loose snow. The pile of snow is shaped into a round, igloo shaped dome, then the inside is dug out. Because the snow is not terribly compacted on the inside it does not take a huge amount of effort or skill to make. The name quinzee is a Canadian term for what other parts of the English speaking world would call a snow hut.

The Garibaldi Ranges are a subdivision of the Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains. Deriving its name from Mount Garibaldi, the Garibaldi Ranges cover ...

Neal Carter (14 Dec 1902 - 15 Mar 1978) was an early explorer of the Coast Mountains around what would eventually be called Whistler Valley. In the summer ...

Mount Garibaldi is the huge, potentially active volcano that Garibaldi Provincial Park is named after. Mount Garibaldi also lends its name to the Garibaldi ...

The Pacific yew or western yew is a coniferous tree that grows in Whistler and along the coast from Alaska to California. The Pacific yew’s unique ...

Russet Lake sits in a wide, glacier carved valley at the base of The Fissile. In the direction opposite The Fissile, up on a plateau less than a ...

Moraines are glacially deposited ridges of debris that accumulate at the sides or terminus of a glacier. Lateral moraines form at the sides of glaciers ...

Tarn: a small alpine lake. The word tarn originates from the Norse word tjorn which translates to English as pond. In the United Kingdom, tarn is widely ...

Fitzsimmons Creek is the beautiful and huge creek that crashes through Whistler Village. When walking from Whistler Village to the Upper Village, you will cross ...

Whistler & Garibaldi Park Hiking

Alexander Falls Ancient Cedars Black Tusk Blackcomb Mountain Brandywine Falls Brandywine Meadows Brew Lake Callaghan Lake Cheakamus Lake Cheakamus River Cirque Lake Flank Trail Garibaldi Lake Garibaldi Park Helm Creek Jane Lakes Joffre Lakes Keyhole Hot Springs Logger’s Lake Madeley Lake Meager Hot Springs Nairn Falls Newt Lake Panorama Ridge Parkhurst Ghost Town Rainbow Falls Rainbow Lake Ring Lake Russet Lake Sea to Sky Trail Skookumchuck Hot Springs Sloquet Hot Springs Mount Sproatt Taylor Meadows Train Wreck Wedgemount Lake Whistler Mountain

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Nairn Falls is a wonderful, crashing and chaotic waterfall that surrounds you from the deluxe viewing platform that allows you to safely watch it from ...

Holloway Falls is the beautiful waterfalls you see partway along the Joffre Lakes Provincial Park trail. Located between Middle Joffre Lake and Upper ...

Shannon Falls towers above Howe Sound at 335 metres as the third tallest falls in BC. The wonderful, though very short trail winds through a beautiful old ...

Mount Meager erupted here 2400 years ago and filled the valley with debris that cemented into rock that blocked Lillooet River. Eventually water erosion ...

More of the Best Whistler Waterfalls

Brew Lake is beautiful mountain lake just a short drive south of Whistler and is relatively unknown and seldom hiked. Laying at the base of Mount Brew, Brew Lake lays in a massive alpine valley of enormous erratics. ...

Skookumchuck Hot Springs(aka T'sek Hot Springs and St. Agnes Well), located two hours north of Whistler along the edge of the huge Lillooet River. The name Skookumchuck means "strong water" in the language of the ...

Logger's Lake is an amazing little lake hidden up in the deep forest above the more well known Cheakamus River. The lake, almost unbelievably exists in a long extinct volcano. However, as soon as you see the ...

Brandywine Falls is one of the must see sights on the drive to or from Whistler, and arguably the nicest of Whistler’s numerous beautiful waterfalls. Located about halfway between Squamish and Whistler, the falls ...

More Whistler Hiking Trails & Maps

HikeInWhistler.com

Rainbow Falls

Black Tusk

Wedgemount Lake

Whistler Train Wreck

Northair Mine

Panorama Ridge

Brandywine Meadows

June Hiking Update!

Garibaldi Provincial Park

Whistler & Garibaldi Park

Whistler & Garibaldi Park Hiking