Fall Hiking in Whistler!
Fall is here and hiking in Whistler is spectacular! Check out our Best Whistler Hiking by Month for inspiration!
Helm Creek is a cute, meandering creek that winds its way from beyond Black Tusk, down the valley to the wonderful campground that takes its name. From the Helm Creek campground, Helm Creek descends further along the Helm Creek trail, until it joins Cheakamus River, not far from where it leaves Cheakamus Lake. The location of Helm Creek campground is pretty amazing for a variety of reasons.
Spread out and serene campsite setting- Well organized campground in deep wilderness
- Connects to Black Tusk via gorgeous ridge route
- Very serene setting next to idyllic creek
- Endless unmarked routes to amazing sights
- Black Tusk looms beautifully very near
More of a crossroads than a destination- No glacier views like you get at Garibaldi Lake
- No convenient lake to swim in
- Fills up fast with just a few tent pads
First it is just a great location. About halfway between Cheakamus Lake and Black Tusk it lays in some amazingly scenic areas of Garibaldi Park. Beautiful, climbable mountains all around. Amazing fields of snow that run all the way to the base of Black Tusk well into July. Rivers, creeks and waterfalls everywhere you look from the idyllic campground. A large, grassy field ringed by trees and Helm Creek. What you always want from a campground is a convenient and clean water source and of course Helm Creek is both. Another aspect of a great campground is a variety of beautiful views and a serene setting and again Helm Creek has both of these. The campground is so widespread that even if the area becomes busy, you can still manage to not hear your neighbours. This part of Garibaldi Park really has no defined trails except the Helm Creek trail that runs past the campsite, but there are infinitely numerous directions you can wander. Exploring in any direction takes you to more and more pristine, green fields, streams, pocket lakes and mountain views. Though most just use it as a base to extend onto Black Tusk, it is a great base for so much more. Helm Peak, Corrie Peak, Cinder Cone, Empetrum Peak as well as the more frequented Panorama Ridge, Black Tusk and Garibaldi Lake.
Possibly the nicest aspect of Helm Creek as a campground is that it is quiet and serene when compared with the other two area Garibaldi Park campgrounds. Garibaldi Lake and Taylor Meadows are very busy all summer long. At Helm Creek you find yourself in a remote and quiet valley in the midst of paradise. From the trail junction in the campground you see the enticing sign indicating what is around you. The nice, well marked trail continues to Panorama Ridge in 7 kilometres. Black Tusk in 9.5 kilometres or Garibaldi Lake in 9 kilometres. All of these destinations branch off the main trail that ascends away from Helm Creek. Another popular, yet unmarked destination from Helm Creek is the Helm Glacier. Though unmarked, it is very easy to find on the trail from Helm Creek that leads to Black Tusk, Panorama Ridge and Garibaldi Lake. Just keep your eyes out for the fantastic erratic, with the tree growing out of it along the trail. It is obvious when you spot it(about 20 minutes from the Helm Creek campground). At this marvellous display of glacier power and a hardy krummholz breaking apart this huge glacier deposited boulder, turn left and walk up the open valley and you will arrive at the amazing Helm Glacier in just 45 minutes. In the opposite direction from Helm Creek from where you just came the sign shows Cheakamus Lake to be 8.5 kilometres away and the Cheakamus Lake trailhead and parking lot to be 8.5 kilometres away. This trail slowly descends the valley for a couple kilometres before more steeply zig-zagging down to the Cheakamus River crossing.
More hiking info for Helm Creek...
Mount Sproatt, or as it is known locally as just Sproatt, is one of the many towering mountains visible from Whistler Village. Above and beyond Alta Lake, directly across ...
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The trail to Whistler Train Wreck is an easy, yet varied route through deep forest, across a great suspension bridge over Cheakamus River, to a stunning array of wrecked ...
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Cheakamus River is the beautiful, crashing and turquoise coloured river that flows from Cheakamus Lake, through the Cheakamus Valley to Daisy Lake. Also a popular kayaking route, ...
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Black Tusk is the extraordinarily iconic and appropriately named mountain that can be seen from almost everywhere in Whistler. The massive black spire of crumbling rock juts out ...
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Garibaldi Park Wildlife & History
Plants of the Whistler Region is an excellent book that includes great pictures and descriptions of most trees you will find in Whistler. Small enough to fit in your pocket and comprehensive enough to identify most things you will encounter growing in the forests of Whistler. Along with conifer trees and broadleaf trees the book has chapters on flowers, berries, ferns and shrubs. You can find Plants of the Whistler Region on Amazon, the Whistler Library and at Armchair Books in Whistler Village. The author Collin Varner has a wonderful series of Plants of.. books on various regions beyond Whistler. Plants of Vancouver and the Lower Mainland, Plants of the Gulf and San Juan Islands and Southern Vancouver Island, and Plants of the West Coast Trail. In the last couple years he has started a new series of books. The Flora and Fauna of Coastal British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest and Edible and Medicinal Flora of the West Coast: British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest. A Passion for Mountains by Kathryn Bridge is a fascinating look at Don and Phyllis Munday's prolific exploration of the mountains in BC. Based out of Vancouver, they were dominant figures of the climbing community in the early 1900's. In 1923 they visited their friend Neal Carter in Alta Lake(Whistler) and explored the mountains around the valley.. many for the first time!
Cirque: a glacier-carved bowl or amphitheater in the mountains. To form, the glacier must be a combination of size, a certain slope and more unexpectedly, a ...
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Emerald Forest is a cute little forest that is well hidden between Whistler Cay and Alpine. From Whistler Village, if you go down to the end of Lorimer ...
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The Cordilleran Ice Sheet covered most of north-west North America for much of the last 2.6 million years. At the Last Glacial Maximum during the Last ...
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Bergschrund or abbreviated schrund: a crevasse that forms from the separation of moving glacier ice from the stagnant ice above. Characterized by a deep ...
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Aiguille: a tall, narrow, characteristically distinct spire of rock. From the French word for "needle". Used extensively as part of the names for many ...
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Corrie Lake is the surreal looking lake that can be seen across the valley from Whistler Mountain. While hiking the High Note trail along Whistler ...
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Mount Garibaldi is the huge, potentially active volcano that Garibaldi Provincial Park is named after. Mount Garibaldi also lends its name to the Garibaldi ...
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The Table is an extraordinary flat-topped mountain located in Garibaldi Park just one kilometre south of Garibaldi Lake. Sometimes reflexively referred to as ...
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Whistler & Garibaldi 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 
Sproatt East Sproatt West Taylor Meadows Train Wreck 
Wedgemount Lake Whistler Mountain
January February 
March April May 
June July August 
September October November December
The short, winding, and ever-changing hiking trail to Rainbow Falls is the same as the much more popular trailhead for Rainbow Lake. The trailhead is marked as the Rainbow Trail, and the trail quickly ...
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Alexander Falls is a very impressive 43 metre/141 foot waterfall just 30 to 40 minutes south of Whistler in the Callaghan Valley. Open year-round and located just before Whistler Olympic Park where several ...
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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 ...
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The Sproatt East trail is a beautifully wild, steep, but relatively short trail to the magnificent, wide open alpine and summit of Mount Sproatt. Mount Sproatt (1834 metres) towers over Whistler Valley ...
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