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!
Bivouac or Bivy: a primitive campsite or simple, flat area where camping is possible. Traditionally used to refer to a very primitive campsite comprised of natural materials found on site such as leaves and branches or simply sleeping under the stars. Often used interchangeably with the word camp, however, bivouac implies a shorter, quicker and much more basic and naturally constructed camp setup.
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
For example, at the Taylor Meadows campground in Garibaldi Park, camping is the appropriately used term to describe sleeping there at night as you have constructed tent platforms and are using a tent. If instead you plan to sleep on the summit of Black Tusk, bivouacking would be more accurately used to describe what you are doing as you are not using a tent. In the warm summer months around Whistler you will find people bivouacking under the stars in various places with just a sleeping bag. Pier bivouacking is the memorable experience of spending the night on one of Whistler’s many piers on lakes such as Alta Lake, Lost Lake, and Alpha Lake. The wonderful, wooden tent platforms at Wedgemount Lake are also ideal places to bivouac under the stars. Along the world renowned West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island you will find several very interesting places previous hikers have bivouacked. From constructed driftwood shelters to idyllic, yet haunting caves, finding a refuge from the harsh west coast weather requires a lot of creativity. Finding one is always interesting as you feel like you have stumbled upon a hidden world. Whether in a dark, but inviting cave with a driftwood seats around the remnants of a campfire or a large, yet strangely cozy lean-to driftwood house with a million dollar view. Entering one of these always fills you with a sense of wonder about who was here before you and curiosity makes you peer into every dark corner.
Twentyone Mile Creek Bivouacking
For the most part bivouacking leaves no trace, but occasionally in Whistler you come across something more lasting. In the deep, dark, hidden forest trail A River Runs Through It, between Emerald Forest and Rainbow Park you occasionally stumble upon interesting curiosities. Just a few metres from the beautiful and winding Twentyone Mile Creek a large, fairly elaborate, yet nearly invisible lean to has been long abandoned. Thin, but long trees, about four metres long lay against a cross beam between two big trees. With the addition of a tarp over one side, you can imagine it being quite cozy as well as pretty big. Just a few steps away you have the crashing creek flowing past and a nice, clean rocky shore to make a campfire. A beautifully picturesque place to camp and an ancient, overgrown dirt road and various old and new trails lead in a few directions and out to civilization unexpectedly quickly.
Winter Bivouacking at Elfin Lakes
In the winter months in Whistler, bivouacking can take the form of a snow cave or quinzee. People bivouacking in snow caves are pretty common around Whistler and in Garibaldi Park in the winter. Outside the Eflin Lakes Hut in Garibaldi Park in the winter you will usually find several snow caves dug out of the snowbank outside the hut. A quinzee is a low-tech version of an igloo that is made from a pile of loose snow. The pile of snow is shaped into a round, igloo shaped dome, then the inside is dug out. Because the snow is not terribly compacted on the inside it does not take a huge amount of effort or skill to make. The name quinzee is a Canadian term for what other parts of the English speaking world would call a snow hut.
Books About Whistler Trees
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. Another great book that takes a specific look at a wonderful tree found in Whistler is The Yew Tree: A Thousand Whispers by Hal Hartzell. About as comprehensive as a book on yew trees can be. Culture, history, modern uses and specific to Whistler and Part 4 of the book specifically deals with the Pacific Yew. From an extensive look at Native Americans use of the Pacific Yew to a more recent examination of this amazing tree. If you have any interest in this extraordinary tree you will find it hard to put this wonderful book down.
The Peak 2 Peak Gondola connects Whistler Mountain and Blackcomb Mountain at a dizzying height of 436 metres(1427 feet). It runs all winter and in the ...
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Overlord Mountain is the highest peak in the Fitzsimmons Range. Overlord is surrounded by several mountains that collectively are named the Overlord ...
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The Green Lake Loop is the original trail that runs around the back side of Green Lake. Before the Sea to Sky Highway was cut through the valley in 1964, ...
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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, ...
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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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Ablation Zone: the lower altitude region of a glacier where there is a net loss of ice mass due to melting, sublimation, evaporation, ice calving or ...
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Wedge Creek cuts through the valley that separates Wedge Mountain and Blackcomb Mountain and empties into Green River near the north end of Green Lake. ...
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Twentyone Mile Creek begins its long and steep journey from Rainbow Lake, high up and between Mount Sproatt and Rainbow Mountain. Cutting between the two ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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September hiking in Whistler is possibly the best month of all. The snow has melted far up to the mountain tops, yet the temperatures are still quite high. ...
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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
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 from Whistler Mountain and ...
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Brandywine Meadows is a nice, relatively short hike to a massive flower filled valley high up in Callaghan Valley. Located 40 minutes south of Whistler, this tough and sometimes muddy trail gains a huge 550 ...
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Madeley Lake is a beautiful, remote mountain lake hidden high up in the Callaghan Valley. From Whistler Village expect to take 40 minutes to drive there. You can drive directly to the lake, however the ...
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Logger's Lake is an amazing little lake hidden up in the deep forest above the more well known Cheakamus River. The lake, almost unbelievably exists in a long extinct volcano. However, as soon as you see ...
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