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Green Lake is stunning, vivid turquoise coloured lake just north of Whistler Village.  The Sea to Sky Highway runs along the edge of the lake for most of its length, giving you excellent view of its stunning colour surrounded by thick forests rising up to mountains.  Along the highway there is a nice pull-out viewpoint that gives you a fantastic view of Green Lake, Wedge Mountain, Blackcomb Mountain and Whistler Mountain beyond.

Whistler & Garibaldi Hiking

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Whistler Parks & Beaches

 Alpha Lake Park  Alta Lake Park  Blueberry Park  Green Lake Park  Lakeside Park  Lost Lake Park  Meadow Park  Nita Lake Park  Rainbow Park  Wayside Park

There is a small neighbourhood with houses lining the shore of Green Lake near the highway.  Tucked into this neighbourhood is a very small, easy to miss park right on the waterfront.  Green Lake Park is a small section of land along the shore of this beautiful lake.  Squeezed between two houses, the park looks like a vacant lot where a house would have been built.  Instead of a house there is a small building with washrooms and a nice little forest with picnic tables.  The rocky shore is perfect for launching a canoe and there is a public storage area for canoes and kayaks.  Green Lake Park is directly across from Parkhurst Ghost Town, a derelict old logging town long abandoned.  The ghost town is easy to spot with its abandoned log loader perched on the edge of the lake, almost directly across from the park.  This huge, very solid metal machine that looks somewhat like a tractor has been sitting there for several decades.  Looking like a museum piece, this beautiful piece of history marks the entrance to Parkhurst if you are arriving by boat.  A trail cuts through the bushes, crosses the train tracks, then ascends up a short hill into the forest where you will find many collapsed houses, one still standing and dozens of interesting curiosities.  There is a hiking and biking trail to Parkhurst, but paddling across the Green Lake from Green Lake Park is the easiest and nicest way to get there.

Green Lake Park to Parkhurst

Looking across Green Lake from the shore of Green Lake Park you can see Mount Cook, Armchair Glacier, Rethel Mountain, Wedge Mountain in the clouds and Parkhurst Mountain.  The old Parkhurst Ghost Town is well hidden in the forest in the foreground of the mountains.  Parkhurst Ghost Town is in the foreground and directly across from Green Lake Park.  There is a great wooden platform next to the large Parkhurst Caterpillar tractor which is perfect to park your boat.  A trail leads up to the Parkhurst Loop Trail which takes you through some of the old ghost town.  If you want to see the site of the old sawmill is is location on the peninsula of land next to the dock.  It is only about 50 metres away and well worth seeing, though you have to do a little bushwhacking to get there.

Green Lake Pier & Boat Launch

Green Lake Park is officially just this small, forested area of waterfront, however, locals generally include the nearby boat launch as Green Lake Park.  Just a couple hundred metres away, adjacent to the highway is the Green Lake boat launch.  Here you will find a nice L-shaped pier with a similarly gorgeous views.  There is another public, pay-to-use canoe/kayak storage rack near the pier.  This part of Green Lake is very good for fishing as well as being a stunning place to relax in the sun.

Green Lake Pier or Park to Parkhurst

From the Green Lake Pier or Green Lake Park you can drop your canoe in the water and paddle across the lake and get to Parkhurst in just 5 minutes.  There are two good places to park your boat across Green Lake.  The big wooden platform is the best dock for seeing the old sawmill site at Parkhurst as well as the Parkhurst Loop Trail up in the forest where most of the houses were.  This dock is also next to the impressively huge derelict Caterpillar logging tractor that leans menacingly over the shore of the lake.  This old Caterpillar D8 tractor was built in 1936 and left here in 1956 when Parkhurst was abandoned.

Green Lake Pier or Park to Parkhurst Ridge

The other good place to dock across the lake is the tiny pier adjacent to the train tracks.  From the Green Lake Pier or Green Lake Park you just have to paddle to the left of the peninsula where the old Parkhurst Sawmill was located.  You will see the cute little pier between the peninsula and Parkhurst Ridge.  If you wan to go to Parkhurst you just have to cross the tracks and look for the tiny railway hut in the trees and the trail that leads up to Parkhurst.  If you want to head up to Parkhurst Ridge you just have to follow the track to the left and find the Parkhurst Ridge Trail on your left that lead up to the beautiful ridge overlooking Green Lake.

Green Lake Park to the Toad Hall Site

Another nice place to canoe to from Green Lake Park or the Green Lake Pier is the site of the old Soo Valley Logging camp which became the second incarnation of Toad Hall in the early 1970's.  The abandoned logging camp was taken over by skiers in the very early days of Whistler and was immortalized in a photo taken shortly before the camp was demolished.  The photo was taken in front of Toad Hall with several skiers wearing nothing but ski boots.  The photo was made into a poster and forever captured an extraordinary time and place in Whistler.  The buildings, including Toad Hall are long gone and the site is a wonderfully tranquil, grassy field at the north end of Green Lake.  South facing, it always seems to be sunny and there is something unusual you feel while there.  It is weirdly peaceful and you can't help but feel some strange connection to the good times that went on in this beautiful place.  To find it you just have to paddle across Green Lake and bear left until you get to the north end of Green Lake.  You will easily spot it to the left of the start of Green River about a 7 minute canoe ride from the Green Lake Pier.

Below is a picture taken at the same location in 2021.  Where the Soo Valley Logging houses and Toad Hall once stood is now a beautifully serene little corner of Whistler.  With no access from the Parkhurst side of Green River this piece of land is a bit isolated and tricky to get to on foot.  You have to walk in from the Sea to Sky Highway and finding parking along the highway is tricky.

Parkhurst Land Purchase in 2017

In 2017 the Resort Municipality of Whistler purchased the Parkhurst lands (200acres/81 hectares), including the land where the famous Toad Hall picture was taken.  The intent is to preserve the historic land and remaining features into a park, however it is likely to remain mostly unchanged for the foreseeable future.

Directions to Green Lake Park

Green Lake Park is just under 8 kilometres north of Whistler Village(just under 10 minutes to drive there).  From Village Gate Boulevard in Whistler Village zero your odometer and drive north on Highway 99.  At 7.5 kilometres you will see the sign on your right for Summer Lane.  Turn right off the highway, then left onto Summer Lane.  Take the next right onto Lakeshore Drive and look for the sign on your right for Green Lake Park.  There is room for a couple cars to park just off the road.  The Green Lake Boat Launch is just around the corner and there is room for several cars to park there.  To find it, continue along Lakeshore Drive, turn left staying on Lakeshore Drive and look for the boat launch sign at the next bend.  Biking there from Whistler Village is quite nice and roughly the same distance.  You can take the Valley Trail past Lost Lake, then to Green Lake, around Green Lake along Highway 99 where it connects to Summer Lane.  It takes about 30 minutes to bike there and even the section along the highway is quite beautiful with views of the lake.

Parkhurst Ghost Town

There are quite a few trails in and around Parkhurst and it can be confusing as you rarely see trail signs and several trails overlap.  For example, the Green Lake Loop is the original trail that ran along the back side of Green Lake and then did a loop through Parkhurst.  Because the more recently built Sea to Sky Trail overlaps much of Green Lake Loop, the two trails are almost interchangeable.  With the Sea to Sky Trail following a newer, more defined route, it tends to overshadow the Green Lake Loop.  Also, half of the loop in the Green Lake Loop has morphed in recent years to be called the Parkhurst Trail, as it is the most direct route to the old ghost town.  There are several ways to get to Parkhurst Ghost Town and they range from alright to amazing.  You can hike from the far end of Green Lake via the Parkhurst Trail (pretty good), the Parkhurst Ridge Trail (amazing), the Green Lake Loop (some of it is nice) or the Sea to Sky Trail(not great) ranging in length from 2.9 kilometres to 3.4 kilometres (one way).  Or you can hike or bike in from the south from Lost Lake near Whistler Village along the Sea to Sky Trail and/or the Green Lake Loop.  Starting from Lost Lake near Whistler Village, you can hike or bike to Parkhurst along the Sea to Sky Trail/Green Lake Loop in 6.2 kilometres.  It is a very nice and wide, gravel trail with a few hills as you ascend up the back of Green Lake.  There are several panoramic vantage points over the lake as you wind through the nice forest in a comparatively quiet corner of Whistler.

The Parkhurst Loop Trail

The Parkhurst Loop Trail is roughly a triangle with each side about 300 metres long.  This trail runs through the now deep forest where most of the houses once stood in Parkhurst.  Part of the loop trail was once an old gravel road which explains how the various wrecked vehicles managed to get there.  Wrecked, old trucks from the 1950’s, an old car from the 1970’s and dozens of collapsed houses lay rotting along this trail.  It is fun to wander through the forest here as you can never tell what you will find around the next bend in the trail.  The triangle shaped loop trail surrounded by deep forest is strangely disorienting.  You find yourself wandering for a while in a direction you are sure is away from Green Lake, only to suddenly emerge from the forest just steps from the water.  Unlike other hiking trails in Whistler where you have a set destination, at Parkhurst you have a non-stop series of curious structures, beautiful sections of forest and endless great lake views.

The Parkhurst Sawmill Site

The old Parkhurst Sawmill was located on the peninsula adjacent to the old Caterpillar tractor.  A little bit of bushwhacking takes you into a surprisingly big clearing in tangle of forest.  The clearing is caused by the collapsed sawmill's metal roof covering the forest floor and preventing big trees from taking root.  You can only see some of the huge metal sheets as most of it lays under a carpet of forest that has settled in over the past 65 years.  The clearing is serene and cut off from the world by a thick perimeter of jungle, making it a sunny paradise on a nice day.

Venturing into the forest around the clearing you will encounter the huge, old chimney from the sawmill as well as a pile of bricks that once housed the sawmill's furnace that powered everything.  Further into the forest you will find two more logging tractors.  An old Cletrac tractor that dates from the mid 1940's and an unexpectedly impressive Caterpillar buried in the forest with its huge plow being lifted off the ground by several trees.  You will probably find yourself crawling around in amazement, peering under the 4000 kilogram plow, wondering how it is possible. 

Trailhead & Parking Directions to Parkhurst

There are several ways to get to Parkhurst, but the access from the Wedgemount Lake turnoff on the Sea to Sky Highway is the most direct if arriving on foot or bike.  If you zero your odometer at Village Gate Blvd in Whistler Village and drive north on Highway 99, at 11.9 kilometres you will see the Wedgemount (Garibaldi) turnoff on your right.  Turn here, cross the train tracks and then the bridge over Green River, turn right and follow the gravel road for a few hundred metres.  You will pass Whistler Paintball on your left and then see a yellow gate and a sign for the Sea to Sky Trail.  Park on the clearing across from the yellow gate and walk straight ahead along the old gravel road, passing the yellow gate, road and Sea to Sky Trail on your left. Biking or hiking the 10 kilometres to Parkhurst from Whistler Village is a very nice option as well.  Biking from Whistler Village to Parkhurst takes only about 20-30 minutes and follows the beautiful Sea to Sky Trail up around Green Lake.  Hiking to Parkhurst from the Village will take the average hiker 2-3 hours each way.