Keyhole Falls are found just a couple kilometres upriver from Keyhole Hot Springs. The unmarked trailhead and parking area for Keyhole Falls are just a couple kilometres past the parking area for Keyhole Hot Springs. If you don't have a rough idea where it is, or expect an obvious sign, you will likely get lost in the maze of logging roads in the area.

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

Whistler Aerial Views

Alexander Brandywine Blackcomb Callaghan Cirque Joffre Keyhole Logger's Madeley Panorama Sproatt Parkhurst Rainbow Russet Train Wreck Wedge Glacier Wedgemount Whistler

Mount Meager looms high above Keyhole Hot Springs and it, and the surrounding peaks are known collectively as the Mount Meager Complex. The Meager Complex produced the most recent, major volcanic event in Canada in the last 10,000 years. The eruption 2400 years ago spread ash as far as Alberta. More recently, in 2010 a massive debris flow swept down and into the valley causing Pemberton to be evacuated. The eruption 2400 years ago left a huge pumice outcrop 2 kilometres long and 1 kilometre wide. Keyhole Hot Springs is located 100 kilometres from Whistler(Village Gate Blvd). Though most of the 100 kilometres is on logging roads, it is driveable by most cars without any trouble. The massive Innergex hydroelectric project has turned this once quiet wilderness into a war-zone. On the plus side, the old logging roads near Keyhole Hot Springs and Keyhole Falls are now well maintained and smooth. The hot springs at Keyhole flow out of the ground adjacent to the swirling, crashing and wonderfully glacier coloured water of the Lillooet River. The colour varies with the season, but for the most part it is a wonderful, deep, milky turquoise. When the sunlight penetrates the deep valley, the milky turquoise changes to an unnaturally bizarre, emerald green colour as it swirls all around you. Sitting in the springs you look across to the vertical rock face and the massive, truck sized chunks of it that lay in the river next to you. The Lillooet is fed from various glaciers and snowy mountains visible all the way to Pemberton. At the Lillooet River crossing in Pemberton Meadows take a look in the distance and you will make out the spectacularly jagged and violent looking peak of Mount Meager. It is also a good place to reflect on the fact that Mount Meager produced the larges volcanic eruption in Canada, in the last ten thousand years. It occurred about 2400 years ago and Keyhole and Meager Hot Springs are symptoms of current volcanic activity and another major eruption is possible.

Keyhole Falls Aerial Views

Meager Slide Debris Field Aerial Views

Meager Hot Springs(aka: Meager Creek Hot Springs) is located 93 kilometres northwest of Whistler, was beautifully developed into gorgeous pools, with a caretaker and usage charge. At its height of popularity, Meager Hot Springs had 30,000 yearly visitors. Unfortunately, due to two recent massive landslides it seems unlikely to ever officially reopen. Below is a picture of Meager Hot Springs in 2009.

Meager Hot Springs in 2009

Just a decade ago, in 2009, a nice, expensive access bridge was installed. A few months later it was dramatically obliterated from another slide in 2010.

Old Meager Bridge Crossing

Meager Bridge Before and After

New Access Trail to Meager Hot Springs

In 2014 the new VOC Harrison Hut Trail was cut through the forest, allowing reasonably convenient access to Meager Hot Springs once again. Unfortunately this access road is in a bit of a logging and construction zone, so don't be surprised if the road is blocked by a rock slide or road construction.

The old access bridge over the Upper Lillooet River which cost nearly a million dollars was wrecked in seconds in 2010. There was considerable wrangling and negotiating to get it built in in 2009, but now it will almost certainly never be rebuilt. The area is far too active. Access to the springs is now via the Harrison Trail via the south side of Upper Lillooet River, above and beyond the still visible, still awe inspiring, mudslide carnage. With the catastrophic mud and debris slide let loose from Devastator Peak in 2010, the nice new (in 2009) million dollar bridge to the Meager Creek Hot Springs was destroyed. Though destroyed doesn't even begin to describe it. Looking on the now, dead end road, where the bridge once stood, the place still looks a mess. "Meager Creek FSR is closed indefinitely; no access to the hot springs." This is from the BCParks Upper Lillooet Provincial Park site, and evidently quite accurate.

More info, details, maps and directions to Keyhole Falls

More Whistler Aerial Views!

Cirque Lake is a beautiful mountain lake hidden up alongside Mount Callaghan in Callaghan Lake Provincial Park. The trailhead is tricky to find and ...

Joffre Lakes Provincial Park is a gorgeous park with extraordinarily coloured lakes, waterfalls, stunning mountain peaks and ominous glaciers pouring into ...

Russet Lake is a surreal little paradise that lays at the base of The Fissile, in Garibaldi Provincial Park. The Fissile is the strikingly bronze ...

Wedgemount Lake itself is a magnificent destination for a day hike or spectacular overnight beneath the dazzling mountain peaks and stars above Garibaldi ...

More Best Whistler Aerial Views

Whistler & Garibaldi Park Hiking Glossary A to Z

Northair Mine is wonderful, hidden world high up in Callaghan Valley. It was a gold mine run by the Northair Group from 1976 until was abandoned in 1982 ...

The Rubble Creek trailhead is the main access point for many of the best hikes and sights in Garibaldi Provincial Park. Rubble Creek is located midway ...

The Fitzsimmons Range is a subsection of the Garibaldi Ranges that covers the area between the valleys of Cheakamus Lake and Fitzsimmons Creek. Fitzsimmons ...

Whistler spruce is a hybrid of the Sitka spruce and the interior Engelmann spruce. Sitka spruce trees thrive in the rainforests of the Pacific Northwest ...

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 ...

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 ...

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

Inosculation is the technical name for two or more trees that have fused together into a single bizarre looking tree. They are colloquially known as ...

More Hike in Whistler Glossary

Whistler & Garibaldi Park Best Hiking by Month!

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Best Whistler Hiking Trails by Month

Explore BC Hiking Destinations!

Whistler Hiking Trails

Hiking in Whistler is spectacular and wonderfully varied. Looking at a map of Whistler you see an extraordinary spider web of hiking trails that are unbelievably numerous. Easy trails, moderate trails and challenging hiking trails are all available. Another marvellous ...

Squamish Hiking Trails

Squamish is located in the midst of a staggering array of amazing hiking trails. Garibaldi Provincial Park sprawls alongside Squamish and up and beyond Whistler. Tantalus Provincial Park lays across the valley to the west and the wonderfully remote Callaghan Valley ...

Vancouver Hiking Trails

Vancouver is surrounded by seemingly endless hiking trails and mountains to explore. Massive parks line up one after another. Mount Seymour Provincial Park, Lynn Canyon Park, Grouse Mountain, Cypress Park and the enormous Garibaldi Park all contribute to Vancouver ...

Clayoquot Hiking Trails

Clayoquot Sound has a staggering array of hiking trails within it. Between Tofino and Ucluelet, Pacific Rim Park has several wilderness and beach trails, each one radically different from the last. The islands in the area are often Provincial parks on their own with ...

Victoria Hiking Trails

Victoria has a seemingly endless number of amazing hiking trails. Most take you to wild and beautiful Pacific Ocean views and others take you to tranquil lakes in beautiful BC Coastal Rainforest wilderness. Regional Parks and Provincial Parks are everywhere you turn in ...

The West Coast Trail

The West Coast Trail was created after decades of brutal and costly shipwrecks occurred along the West Coast of Vancouver Island. One shipwreck in particular was so horrific, tragic and unbelievable that it forced the creation of a trail along the coast, which ...

HikeInWhistler.com

Black Tusk

Brandywine Meadows

Cirque Lake

Wedgemount Lake

Whistler Train Wreck

Adit Lakes

Northair Mine