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 driver parked it one day and just never returned to work. In fact that may have been the case as one day in 1956, the sawmill at Parkhurst shut down forever and the town was abandoned. For a logging town in the 1950's having everyone suddenly leave was not unusual and in fact Parkhurst vacated every year when the sawmill shut for the winter.
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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With few job opportunities in the small community most left for the city to find work over the winter months. When Parkhurst was abandoned permanently in 1956, the big Caterpillar tractor was probably simply parked at the edge of Green Lake with the expectation that it would be retrieved later. Maybe it was too expensive or difficult to transport it from the far side of Green Lake. Or maybe it sat unmoved for so long that it became unmovable. Now, decades later it is a bold landmark overlooking Green Lake and a permanent marker, if arriving by boat, to Parkhurst Ghost Town. Adjacent to huge Caterpillar tractor is a large disintegrating wooden dock that is a great place to take in the wonderful view of Green Lake. From the dock if you look directly to the right you will see a large triangle of deep forest jutting out into the lake. This is where the Parkhurst sawmill once operated for thirty years. Looking at the almost impenetrable forest now, it is hard to picture this area without trees and with train tracks extending into a large building housing the sawmill with an enormous steel chimney several dozen metres tall. A little bushwhacking takes you to the huge, old chimney now laying on the ground in several huge pieces. You can even locate the solid steel base of the chimney in the midst of a large bewildering clearing devoid of trees. It takes a little investigating to realize that under about a foot of grass, moss and other forest growth you are standing on massive sheets of thick metal that once was the roof of the old sawmill. For decades this would have been the loudest and busiest place in the area, now it is a wonderful oasis cut off from the world by the 65-year-old forest that surrounds it.
The Parkhurst Caterpillar on the shore of Green Lake was built in 1939 and is the very successful D8 model. Caterpillar produced just under 10,000 of this 1H series type of Caterpillars from 1935 to 1941 and this one was the 4916th one off the assembly line. The normal operating weight for a standard Cat D8 like this is well over 16,000 kilograms and this one was powered by a 115 horsepower 6 cylinder Caterpillar model D13000 diesel engine.
The Parkhurst Sawmill operated on the triangle of land that juts out into Green Lake and also extended along the shore between the train tracks and the shore. The old sawmill was almost certainly crushed under heavy snow in the years following its closure in 1956. With the town abandoned there were no caretakers to maintain any of the old structures and the crushing weight of spring snow eventually flattened all but two of the old houses and the old sawmill.
Today, when you wander around where the old sawmill was you will notice a strange lack of trees growing in certain areas. After a bit of poking around you realized that under the forest floor layer of dirt, moss and grass are huge sheets of metal that once covered the roof of the Parkhurst Sawmill. Some of these can still be seen where there once was a covered area over train tracks that branched off from the railway we see today and extended to the sawmill near the end of the point of land. With some digging you may uncover the old train tracks under all the collapsed debris, but it seems likely that the tracks were removed and salvaged. The giant steel chimney from the sawmill is still easy to find sprawled across the forest floor in a few pieces. The brick building that housed the furnace is now a pile of bricks crumbling around the old furnace. Also in the forest you will encounter yet another abandoned tractor. An old Cletrac tractor, similar to the the Caterpillar RD8, but newer, smaller and lacking an enormous plow. As with the Caterpillar RD8, the forest has consumed and hidden it quite well.
Parkhurst Ghost Town is a beautiful and comparatively quiet place to hike in Whistler. An ever increasing network of hiking and biking trails over the years have made it quite an accessible place to get to from either the Sea to Sky Trail/Green Lake Loop Trail from Lost Lake near Whistler Village or via the Parkhurst Trail at the far end of Green Lake. A short drive from Whistler Village along the Sea to Sky Highway past the north end of Green Lake takes you to the trailhead for the Parkhurst Trail and the short hike to Parkhurst. The highlights of Parkhurst Ghost Town are not just the interesting old relics of the abandoned town, but the gorgeous views of Green Lake from several places along the Parkhurst Ridge Trail.
More Parkhurst Ghost Town Info
Ablation Zone Accumulation Zone Adit Lakes Aiguille Alpine Zone Arborlith Arête ARRTI Armchair Glacier The Barrier Battleship Islands Bears Bench Bergschrund Bivouac Bungee Bridge Bushwhack Cairn Carter, Neal Chimney Cirque Cloudraker Coast Douglas-fir Coast Mountains Col Columnar Jointing Cordilleran Cornice Corrie Lake Crevasse Dalgleish, Alec Deadfall Emerald Forest Erratic The Fissile Fitzsimmons Creek Fitzsimmons Range Fyles, Tom Garibaldi Ranges Garibaldi Volcanic Belt Gemel Glacier Window Green Lake Green Lake Loop Hoary Marmot Krummholz Lodgepole Pine Moraine Mt Garibaldi Mt James Turner Mountain Hemlock Northair Mine North Arm Farm Nunatuk Nurse Stump Overlord Pacific Yew Paper Birch Parkhurst Cat Parkhurst RD8 Parkhurst Cletrac Parkhurst Plow Tree Parkhurst Ridge Parkhurst Sawmill Parkhurst Wye Peak 2 Peak Rainbow Lodge Roundhouse Rubble Creek Scree Spearhead Range Tarn The Table Townsend, Charles Usnea Waterbar Western Hemlock Western Redcedar Whistler Spruce Winram, Mills
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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