June Hiking Update!
Looking forward to summer hiking opening up in Whistler as the mountain trails emerge from the deep winter snow? Check out our Whistler hiking guide for June! Escape to the wilderness and rent gear today at WeRentGear Whistler.
Brew Lake is beautiful mountain lake just a short drive south of Whistler and is relatively unknown and seldom hiked. Laying at the base of Mount Brew, Brew Lake lays in a massive alpine valley of enormous erratics. On first seeing Brew Lake it looks serene, yet wild and hostile. The lake is surrounded on one side by idyllic tree covered hills and lakeside cliffs and on the other side a brutal looking wasteland of huge boulders sloping up to the sky.
Very off the radar, wild & infrequently hiked- Stunning, dramatic boulder field & windswept trees
- Lots of excellent places to put your tent
- Not as cold to swim as Joffre, Wedge, Garibaldi
- Hut on Mount Brew is a surreal little oasis
- Beautiful views of Black Tusk & Daisy Lake
Tricky to find trailhead & tough, steep trail- Lake is not stunning like Joffre, Wedge, Garibaldi
- Snow restricts access well into June
- Trail is only 5k, but feels like 10k!
Hiking into this wasteland of erratics reveals an amazing paradise of small, island forests, cute streams and endless worlds within worlds to explore. You find yourself wandering along like a kid mesmerized at what you will find next. Brew Lake itself doesn't come close in wow factor to the postcard-perfect alpine lakes such as Wedgemount Lake, Joffre Lakes, Cheakamus Lake or Garibaldi Lake, but I does beat these lakes in other aspects. Because Brew Lake is outside of Garibaldi Provincial Park few people have heard of it. More often than not you will have both the lake and entire valley to yourself. An increasingly rare occurrence elsewhere that gives the place a quiet calm and that strange and satisfying feeling that there are no other humans for quite some distance. You have that exhilarating wilderness feeling that sometimes gets lost on other Whistler area hikes when you start the trail from a parking lot packed with cars. The fact that the Brew Lake trail doesn't have a parking lot or proper trailhead actually makes it more mysterious, adventurous and in some ways more fun. Brew Lake is shallow and absolutely crystal clear. Mesmerizingly clear. You can look across the lake and see smooth and rounded rocks scattered across the lake bottom.
The lake is also relatively small at just a few hundred metres across and unexpectedly warm to swim in. Breathtakingly cold lakes are the norm in the Whistler area, but Brew Lake is an exception. Try swimming in Wedgemount Lake, Joffre Lakes, Russet Lake, Cirque Lake, Cheakamus Lake or Garibaldi Lake for any length of time and you will be shivering cold. You can manage a minute or two swimming in these lakes, but certainly not 20 or 30 minutes as you can in Brew Lake. There are even some massive, flat topped erratics in the lake to swim to and lounge on. The sun makes them amazingly warm on a sunny day. The edge of the lake surrounded by grass areas littered with erratics making it tricky to find a spot for a tent, but easy to find a place to sit. Once you do find a place for your tent, further exploration reveals countless other great spots. Grassy clifftops, clearings at the edge of streams.
A third aspect of Brew Lake that beats the local, alpine lake competition is the hike itself. It is amazing. Comparable in difficulty to the Wedgemount Lake trail, though two kilometres shorter and packed with things to see. From the dozen or so amazing viewpoints on various plateaus steps from the trail to the endless gnarled, weather-beaten, yet captivating forests of twisted, mangled, huge and bewildering trees. Over and over along the 5 kilometre trail you stop and stare in wonder at how a huge tree, 30 metres tall can have an absurd, sideways L-shape in its trunk big enough to stand in. You see it over and over until eventually you work out that when these trees are young they spend most of the year under metres of snow. Over the years they grow at an unusual looking right angle, as if growing sideways. Eventually the tree grows big and thick enough to not have the snow push it over and it grows vertical again. But of course it keeps this hilarious L-shape as it continues to grow. You start spotting the smaller ones everywhere you look. The trunk comes out of the ground one metre, then one metre horizontal, then one metre vertical again. Hilarious. Absurd and hilarious.
More Whistler Hiking Maps & Guides
Alexander Falls Maps Ancient Cedars Maps Black Tusk Maps Blackcomb Maps Brandywine Falls Maps Brandywine Meadows Maps Brew Lake Maps Callaghan Lake Maps Cheakamus Lake Maps Cheakamus River Maps Cirque Lake Maps Garibaldi Lake Maps Helm Creek Maps Joffre Lakes Maps Keyhole Maps Logger’s Lake Maps Madeley Lake Map Meager Hot Springs Maps Nairn Falls Maps Panorama Ridge Maps Parkhurst Maps Rainbow Falls Maps Rainbow Lake Maps Ring Lake Maps Russet Lake Maps Skookumchuck Maps Sloquet Hot Springs Maps Sproatt Maps Taylor Meadows Maps Train Wreck Maps Wedgemount Lake Maps Whistler Mountain Maps
October 20th, 2018: A little knowledge before you head out into the wilderness is a good idea. Especially if you are new to hiking or in unknown terrain. ...
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Sept 11th, 2019: The notoriously difficult biking trail in the wilderness between Emerald Forest and Rainbow Park is a pretty fun place to wander around. It ...
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May 8th, 2019: After crossing the bridge to Whistler Train Wreck you come to the Hidden Agenda car and sloping down to the edge overlooking Cheakamus River ...
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April 8th, 2019: The Rubble Creek trailhead to Garibaldi Provincial Park is finally accessible by car. The snow buried access road is mostly free of snow. ...
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January 1st,2020: Happy new year in Whistler and the snow is finally falling. We have winter down sleeping bags for rent that are incredibly compact, ...
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May 3rd, 2019: The beautiful murals that make Whistler Train Wreck the magical place it is today, began appearing in 2011. Artists ranging from aspiring ...
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December 21st, 2019: Way up in the Callaghan Valley on the back side of Mount Sproatt is an abandoned gold mine. Old cement foundations and two ...
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Whistler & Garibaldi Park 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 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
January February March April May June July August September October November December
Rainbow Falls is located just a short hike from the start of the Rainbow Trail to Rainbow Lake. The trailhead is along Alta Lake Road on the far side of ...
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Brandywine Falls is one of the must see sights on the way to or from Whistler. The falls drop from a 70 metre(230 feet), unnaturally abrupt looking cliff ...
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Shannon Falls towers above Howe Sound at 335 metres as the third tallest falls in BC. The wonderful, though very short trail winds through a beautiful old ...
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Nairn Falls is a wonderful, crashing and chaotic waterfall that surrounds you from the deluxe viewing platform that allows you to safely watch it from ...
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Whistler has an absurd number of wonderful and free hiking trails and Parkhurst Ghost Town certainly ranks as one of the most unusual, exotic and interesting. Parkhurst was a little logging town perched on ...
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Keyhole Hot Springs (aka Pebble Creek Hot Springs) is located 100 kilometres from Whistler(Village Gate Blvd). Closed from Apr 1- Nov 15 due to Grizzly Bears habituated to humans in the area. Though most of ...
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The Rainbow Trail is a convenient and popular trail near Whistler Village that takes you to Rainbow Lake as well as the Rainbow-Sproatt Flank Trail, Rainbow Falls, Hanging Lake, Madeley Lake, Beverley ...
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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 Blackcomb ...
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