HikeInWhistler.com

HikeInWhistler.com

Menu
  • Hike
      • Alexander Falls Provincial Park
      • Ancient Cedars & Showh Lakes
      • Black Tusk in Garibaldi Park
      • Blackcomb Mountain Hiking Trails
      • Brandywine Falls Provincial Park
      • Brandywine Meadows
      • Brew Lake & Mount Brew
      • Callaghan Lake Provincial Park
      • Cheakamus Lake in Garibaldi Park
      • Cheakamus River & Interpretive Forest
      • Cirque Lake in Callaghan Valley
      • Flank Trail (Rainbow-Sproatt)
      • Garibaldi Lake in Garibaldi Park
      • Helm Creek in Garibaldi Park
      • Jane Lakes West
      • Joffre Lakes Provincial Park
      • Keyhole Hot Springs
      • Logger's Lake & Interpretive Forest
      • Madeley Lake in Callaghan Valley
      • Meager Hot Springs
      • Nairn Falls Provincial Park
      • Newt Lake & Ancient Cedars
      • Panorama Ridge in Garibaldi Park
      • Parkhurst Ghost Town
      • Rainbow Falls
      • Rainbow Lake
      • Ring Lake & Conflict Lake
      • Russet Lake in Garibaldi Park
      • Sea to Sky Trail
      • Skookumchuck Hot Springs
      • Sloquet Hot Springs
      • Sproatt West(Northair) Trail
      • Sproatt East(Stonebridge) Trail
      • Train Wreck & Trash Trail
      • Taylor Meadows in Garibaldi Park
      • Wedgemount Lake in Garibaldi Park
      • Whistler Mountain Hiking Trails
  • Snow
      • Blueberry Trail Snowshoeing
      • Brandywine Falls Snowshoeing
      • Cheakamus River Snowshoeing
      • Elfin Lakes Snowshoeing
      • Flank Trail Snowshoeing
      • Joffre Lakes Snowshoeing
      • Nairn Falls Snowshoeing
      • Parkhurst Ghost Town Snowshoeing
      • Rainbow Falls Snowshoeing
      • Rainbow Lake Snowshoeing
      • Rainbow Park Snowshoeing
      • Sproatt East Snowshoeing
      • Taylor Meadows Snowshoeing
      • Train Wreck Snowshoeing
      • Wedgemount Lake Snowshoeing
  • Run
      • Whistler Golf Course 5k(3.1 Mile)
      • Blueberry Hill 6k(3.7 Mile)
      • Lost Lake 6k(3.7 Mile)
      • Alta Lake 8k(5 Mile)
      • Fitzsimmons Creek 9k(5.6 Mile)
      • Alta Green Lost 15k(9.3 Mile)
  • Best
      • Best Whistler Parks & Beaches
      • Best Whistler Waterfalls
      • Best Whistler Aerial Views
      • Best Whistler Hiking by Month
      • Best Whistler Snowshoeing
      • Best Whistler Running Trails
      • Best Whistler Hiking Trails
      • Best Squamish Hiking Trails
      • Best Vancouver Hiking Trails
      • Best Whistler Hiking Gear Rentals
  • AtoZ
      • Ablation Zone
      • Accumulation Zone
      • Adit Lakes
      • Aiguille
      • Alpine Zone
      • Arête
      • Armchair Glacier
      • A River Runs Through It
      • The Barrier
      • Bears
      • Bench
      • Bergschrund or Schrund
      • Bivouac or Bivy
      • Cairns & Inukshuks
      • Chimney
      • Cirque or Cirque Lake
      • Cloudraker Skybridge
      • Coast Mountains
      • Col
      • Crevasse
      • Deadfall
      • Erratic or Glacier Erratic
      • The Fissile
      • Fitzsimmons Creek
      • Fitzsimmons Range
      • Garibaldi Ranges
      • Garibaldi Volcanic Belt
      • Gemel or Inosculation
      • Glacier Window
      • Green Lake
      • Hoary Marmot
      • Krummholz
      • Moraine
      • Mount Garibaldi
      • Mount James Turner
      • Northair Mine
      • Nunatuk
      • Overlord Mountain & Glacier
      • Peak2Peak Gondola
      • Roundhouse Lodge
      • Rubble Creek
      • Spearhead Range
      • Tarn
      • The Table
      • Usnea or Old Man's Beard
  • Maps
      • Alexander Falls Maps
      • Ancient Cedars Maps
      • Black Tusk Maps
      • Blackcomb Mountain Maps
      • Brandywine Falls Maps
      • Brandywine Meadows Maps
      • Brew Lake Maps
      • Callaghan Lake Maps
      • Cheakamus Lake Maps
      • Cheakamus River Maps
      • Cirque Lake Maps
      • Garibaldi Lake Maps
      • Helm Creek Maps
      • Joffre Lakes Maps
      • Keyhole Hot Springs Maps
      • Logger's Lake Maps
      • Madeley Lake Maps
      • Meager Hot Springs Maps
      • Nairn Falls Maps
      • Panorama Ridge Maps
      • Parkhurst Ghost Town Maps
      • Rainbow Falls Maps
      • Rainbow Lake Maps
      • Ring Lake Maps
      • Russet Lake Maps
      • Skookumchuck Maps
      • Sloquet Hot Springs Maps
      • Sproatt Maps
      • Taylor Meadows Maps
      • Train Wreck Maps
      • Wedgemount Lake Maps
      • Whistler Mountain Maps
  • News
      • Whistler Hiking News & Blog
      • Live Whistler Webcams
      • Live Tofino Webcams
      • Garibaldi Provincial Park
      • Hike in Whistler Glossary

Cirque Lake

Whistler Train Wreck

Wedgemount Lake

Rainbow Falls

Parkhurst Ghost Town

Joffre Lakes

Black Tusk

Garibaldi Park

Spring Hiking Has Arrived!

Spring is here and summer is not far off! The road to Parkhurst Ghost Town is accessible now! Whistler Train Wreck is free of snow too. Check out Hike in Whistler May 2022 for inspiration!

Rent Hiking Gear Here!

Whistler hiking gear rental at WeRentGear.com.  Free delivery in Whistler and to Rubble Creek for Garibaldi Provincial Park.  WeRentGear Whistler: Best gear, best prices, best service.

The West Coast Trail is incredible. Everything about it is amazing. From the wildly, incomprehensibly enormous trees to endless jaw dropping views. And it's tough.  Very tough.  It is a trail that shouldn't exist. Hiking trails always form out of the easiest route worn down over the years to some worthwhile destination. The West Coast Trail evolved out of the need to get shipwreck survivors out of this this otherwise beautiful place.

  • Shipwreck on the West Coast TrailPrologue
  • Shipwreck on the West Coast TrailChapter 1: The West Coast Trail
  • Shipwreck on the West Coast TrailChapter 2: When to Hike & Fees
  • Shipwreck on the West Coast TrailChapter 3: Trailheads
  • Shipwreck on the West Coast TrailChapter 4: Getting There
  • Shipwreck on the West Coast TrailChapter 5: Considerations
  • Shipwreck on the West Coast TrailChapter 6: Campsites
  • Shipwreck on the West Coast TrailChapter 7: Shipwrecks
  • Shipwreck on the West Coast TrailChapter 8: Routes

This trail was formed out of necessity and the route today is the only route realistically possible along this tangle of rainforest over brutally changing terrain. Flanked by steep cliffs on one side and the Graveyard of the Pacific on the other the route evolved where it shouldn't have. Who would plow a trail through such impenetrable wilderness unless absolutely necessary. Always wet, always up and down, hundreds of rivers, creeks, canyons, fallen trees and lots and lots of ladders. Even with all the construction of suspension bridges, cable car crossing and ladders it's brutal. And yearly, winter storms blast down monstrously huge trees and leave them sprawling across the trail.

The West Coast Trail's difficulty can be measured by its relatively short length of 75 kilometres yet it takes 5-7 days to complete. This is for two wonderful, spectacular and telling reasons. First, the trail's length is misleading as it doesn't take into account the thousands of zig-zags along the route. Both left and right as well as up and down. It is a jigsaw of a trail, up and down over endless chasms tangled with rainforest. Does that 75k take into account the 50 foot ladders? It just takes a long time to snake through and you quickly discover that 2 kilometres on the map shows as 4.8 kilometres on your gps! Added to that your pace is bogged down by whole sections of mud, crawling under and over fallen trees, and of course pausing almost every 5 minutes to soak in a sensational view.

Even the wrecked sections of trail become a thing of wonder and amusement. Often you stroll along an ancient, but lovely wooden boardwalk only to stop at a sizable length missing. A chunk of boardwalk a few metres long inexplicably missing. You stand at the end of the boardwalk and look across the gap which is a deep pool of mud with impenetrable jungle on either side. Then you spot it. On either side of the gap is a chainsawed end of an enormous tree that crashed down on the boardwalk during some winter storm a long time ago. You can tell it has been a few years because of the weathering of the two ends of the tree flanking the gap as well as the waterlogged and disintegrating pieces of this monster cut away. The tree was so massive that it sprang up when cut and the two ends are levered up to eye level with the weight of the length of tree that quickly disappears into the thick forest. Why haven't they fixed the boardwalk here? That thought crosses your mind a few times, until you pass a few more of these along the trail and realize that they must happen astonishingly often and repairing the damage takes a considerable amount of work. You would need an army of workers to keep on top of the needed repairs to the West Coast Trail. This of course is not realistic, and you slowly come to the conclusion that the trail is much more colourful and interesting with its smashed sections and constant reminders of the wild, destructive power of Vancouver Island's west coast.

Owen Point West Coast Trail

Wild, Brutal and Beautiful West Coast Trail

It takes a couple days on the West Coast Trail to grasp how wonderful it is. It's so beautiful. Wildly beautiful, and this is a phenomenon that the West Coast Trail is alive with. It's constantly changing at every glance. Everywhere you look you spot a work of art in the form of a splayed tree over a river valley or a sudden gap in the forest revealing the ocean a thousand feet below. A swirling morass of green water and white, swirling foam churned up by the waves crashing from the Pacific. This constantly changing terrain with endless views and obstacles alone would secure this hike as one of the worlds best. But there is another aspect that combined with its beauty, makes it what it is. The West Coast Trail. This is a characteristic that is seldom understood or explained for how wonderful it actually is. The harsh difficulty of the trail.

West Coast Trail Ladders

Valencia Bluffs West Coast Trail

The trail is brutal. It's invariably raining, so you are often soaking wet. This makes you soggy and crabby, tired and exhausted. The treacherous trail in this wet is muddy, slippery and requires your full attention at every step. This mesmerizes you as you hike. You focus completely on your next step and your mind relaxes into a meditative state. This is when it happens. You look up, catch a glance of what's around you, and it's marvellous. This is it. The West Coast Trail is a perfect combination of brutal difficulty, spectacular wildness and stunning natural beauty. Added to that you occasionally get a glimpse of history that carries you back in time. A piece of a shipwreck along the beach or a massive anchor left 150 years ago after the ship it came from succumbed to the Graveyard of the Pacific in some calamitous storm that smashed it here.  Preview the West Coast Trail Here...

West Coast Trail Hiking Guide

Hiking Trails & CampingWhistler   Hiking Trails & CampingSquamish  Hiking Trails & CampingVancouver  Hiking Trails & CampingClayoquot  Hiking Trails & CampingVictoria  Hiking Trails & CampingWest Coast Trail

Hike the West Coast Trail

  Day 1 Pachena to Darling Day 2 Darling to Tsusiat Day 3 Tsusiat to Carmanah Day 4 Carmanah to Walbran

Day 5 Walbran to Cullite Day 6 Cullite to Camper Day 7 Camper to Thrasher

West Coast Trail Campsites

 West Coast Trail CampsiteMichigan Creek at 12k West Coast Trail CampsiteDarling River at 14k Orange Juice Creek at 15k West Coast Trail CampsiteTsocowis Creek at 16.5k West Coast Trail CampsiteKlanawa River at 23k

West Coast Trail CampsiteTsusiat Falls at 25k West Coast Trail CampsiteCribs Creek at 42k West Coast Trail CampsiteCarmanah Creek at 46k West Coast Trail CampsiteBonilla Creek at 48k

West Coast Trail CampsiteWalbran Creek at 53k West Coast Trail CampsiteCullite Cove at 58k West Coast Trail CampsiteCamper Bay at 62k West Coast Trail CampsiteThrasher Cove at 70k

May is an extraordinarily beautiful time of year in Whistler.  The days are longer and warmer and a great lull in between seasons happens.  Whistler is fairly ...
Read more
June is a pretty amazing month to hike in Whistler.  The average low and high temperatures in Whistler range from 9c to 21c(48f/70f).  The summer tourist ...
Read more
July is a wonderful time to hike in Whistler and Garibaldi Provincial Park.  The weather is beautiful and the snow on high elevation hiking trails is long ...
Read more
August hiking in Whistler definitely has the most consistently great, hot weather.  You can feel the rare pleasure of walking across a glacier shirtless and ...
Read more
Best Whistler Hiking Trails by Month

When hiking to Parkhurst Ghost Town, the first area you will encounter after you cross the disintegrating bridge over Wedge Creek is the wye.  In railroad ...
Read more
Northair Mine is a surreal little world of colourful murals on abandoned cement foundations, surrounded by an astoundingly tranquil little lake in a ...
Read more
Cairns, inukshuks or inuksuks are a pile or arrangement of rocks used to indicate a route, landmark or a summit.  The word cairn originates from the ...
Read more
Along the shore of Green Lake, you will find a monstrous old Caterpillar tractor that dates from the 1930’s.  Abandoned here in the 1950’s, it looks as if the ...
Read more
Western redcedar is a very large tree commonly found in the Pacific Northwest. Frequently growing up to 70 metres and with a trunk diameter of 7 metres, ...
Read more
Mills Winram was a very active mountaineer from Vancouver with some very notable ascents in the 1920's and 1930's.  He, along with Fred Parkes and Stan ...
Read more
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 ...
Read more
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 ...
Read more

Rent Hiking Gear Whistler & Garibaldi Park

Whistler & Garibaldi Hiking

Easy Hiking Trail WhistlerAlexander Falls  Moderate Hiking Trail Whistler Dog FriendlyAncient Cedars  Moderate Hiking Trail WhistlerBlack Tusk  Pay Use Hiking Trail WhistlerBlackcomb Mountain  Easy Hiking Trail WhistlerBrandywine Falls  Moderate/Hard Hiking Trail Whistler Dog FriendlyBrandywine Meadows  Moderate/Hard Hiking Trail Whistler Dog FriendlyBrew Lake  Easy Hiking Trail WhistlerCallaghan Lake  Moderate Hiking Trail WhistlerCheakamus Lake  Whistler Hiking Trail EasyCheakamus River  Whistler Hiking Trail HardCirque Lake  Whistler Hiking Trail EasyFlank Trail  Moderate Hiking Trail WhistlerGaribaldi Lake  Moderate Hiking Trail WhistlerGaribaldi Park  Moderate Hiking Trail WhistlerHelm Creek  Moderate Hiking Trail Whistler Dog FriendlyJane Lakes  Joffre Lakes Hike in Whistler in SeptemberJoffre Lakes  Moderate Hiking Trail Whistler Dog FriendlyKeyhole Hot Springs  Hiking Trail Hard Dog FriendlyLogger’s Lake  Whistler Hiking Trail EasyMadeley Lake  Moderate/Hard Hiking Trail Whistler Dog FriendlyMeager Hot Springs Easy Hiking Trail WhistlerNairn Falls  Whistler Hiking Trail HardNewt Lake  Moderate Hiking Trail WhistlerPanorama Ridge  Whistler Hiking Trail EasyParkhurst Ghost Town  Hiking Trail Hard Dog FriendlyRainbow Falls  Moderate Hiking Trail WhistlerRainbow Lake  Moderate/Hard Hiking Trail Whistler Dog FriendlyRing Lake  Moderate Hiking Trail WhistlerRusset Lake  Whistler Hiking Trail EasySea to Sky Trail  Easy Hiking Trail WhistlerSkookumchuck Hot Springs  Easy Hiking Trail WhistlerSloquet Hot Springs  Sproatt East  Moderate Hiking Trail WhistlerSproatt West  Moderate Hiking Trail WhistlerTaylor Meadows  Whistler Hiking Trail EasyTrain Wreck  Hiking Trail Hard - Whistler TrailsWedgemount Lake  Pay Use Hiking Trail WhistlerWhistler Mountain

  Winter Hiking WhistlerJanuary  Winter Hiking WhistlerFebruary  Spring Hiking WhistlerMarch  Spring Hiking WhistlerApril  Spring Hiking WhistlerMay  Summer Hiking WhistlerJune  Summer Hiking WhistlerJuly  Summer Hiking WhistlerAugust  Fall Hiking WhistlerSeptember  Fall Hiking WhistlerOctober  Fall Hiking WhistlerNovember  Winter Hiking WhistlerDecember

The alpine hiking trails on Whistler Mountain are the ultimate in luxurious, quick-access alpine hiking. Little effort gets you amazing views of turquoise lakes, snowy mountains, valleys of flowers and ...
Read more
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 ...
Read more
Panorama Ridge is easily one of the most amazing hikes in Garibaldi Provincial Park.  The 15 kilometre(9.3 mile) hike from the trailhead at Rubble Creek to Panorama Ridge takes you through beautiful and deep ...
Read more
Joffre Lakes Provincial Park is a gorgeous park with extraordinarily coloured lakes, waterfalls, stunning mountain peaks and ominous glaciers pouring into the valley.  Joffre Lakes is one of those incredible ...
Read more
More Whistler Hiking Trails & Maps

HikeInWhistler.com HikeInWhistler.com © 2022

  • Contact Us: [email protected]