Fall Hiking in Whistler!
Fall is here and hiking in Whistler is spectacular! Check out our Best Whistler Hiking by Month for inspiration!
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 avalanches it seems unlikely to ever officially reopen. After several years of being closed, access reopened on 2009 with a nice, expensive, new bridge.
Amazing large pool & several small pools- Visible geological history surrounds Meager
- Hard to get to, so few people go there
- Lots of great places for a tent
- Trail looks across to the 2010 slide path
- The main pool is huge
- You will likely have the place to yourself
- Trail goes through a beautiful forest
- Once a busy, pay to use place, now serene!
Accessible only by a long 9k hike
Only to be dramatically obliterated from another slide in 2010. In 2014 the new VOC Harrison Hut Trail was mostly completed, allowing access to Meager Hot Springs once again. Currently this access road is in a bit of a 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 new Harrison Trail via the south side of the the 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 Meager 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. Dead and still dying grey ghosts of trees still stand as they did in piles of forest wreckage. Even the road in looks bizarre. The road was simply bulldozed back to life. On either side, hemmed in by piles of dirt and dead trees. The mudslide that did this seems beyond belief. This river valley in the midst of a beautiful, green forest, is a sea of brown. Mud, dirt, and dead trees. At its peak of popularity in 1994, Meager Hot Springs had 30,000 visitors a year. With the unrestrained numbers, vandalism and violence broke out at the springs often so the BC Forest Service stepped in. They hired an on-site supervisor, limited vehicle access and charged a usage fee. Then the big slide of 2010 happened and now of course it only gets a few, very motivated visitors.
In 2014 a new route was built to Meager Creek Hot Springs by the UBC Varsity Outdoor Club. The new VOC Harrison Hut Trail regains access to the much prized Harrison Hut, but also opens up an excellent access trail to Meager. The trail is long and not too easy, however, and getting to the trailhead is quite an adventure. The logging road deteriorates quickly on the last couple kilometres and you find yourself dodging basketball sized boulders strewn across the road. The old access route to Meager ran along the far(north side) of the Lillooet Forest Service Rd. This new trailhead is located on the near(left or south) side of the Upper Lillooet River and you simply continue along the Pemberton Meadows Road (almost) until you can't go any further. From the middle of Pemberton to the trailhead is 64 kilometres. The easy to miss trailhead is marked with a small trailhead sign for "VOC Harrison Hut Trail" No mention of Meager Creek Hot Springs on it.
The short, scenic and easy hiking trail to Rainbow Falls is located just a short, half kilometre from the Rainbow Lake or Rainbow Trail trailhead. The trail begins by ...
Read more
Blackcomb Mountain holds an impressive and ever growing array of hiking trails. From the moment you arrive at the Rendezvous Lodge, you see hiking trails ascend into the ...
Read more
The alpine hiking trails on Whistler Mountain are the ultimate in luxurious hiking. Little hiking effort gets you amazing views of turquoise lakes, snowy mountain, valleys of ...
Read more
Two Interesting Historical Books!
If you have been to Sloquet Hot Springs, you likely had no idea that you were in the midst of a century old mystery of a lost gold mine. Several books have been written about it and the History Channel even made a six episode show called Curse of the Frozen Gold. The show was quite entertaining with the characters exploring the mountains around Sloquet. The hot springs even appeared in one episode as they searched nearby for the mysterious hidden vein of gold. The excellent book, Slumach's Gold: In Search of A Legend lays out the history and theories in enticing detail. The next time you find yourself lounging in Sloquet Hot Springs, you will inevitably glance around and wondering if you are sitting near the hidden gold mine. A Passion for Mountains by Kathryn Bridge is a fascinating look at Don and Phyllis Munday's prolific exploration of the mountains in BC. Based out of Vancouver, they were dominant figures of the climbing community in the early 1900's. In 1923 they visited their friend Neal Carter in Alta Lake(Whistler) and explored the mountains around the valley.. many for the first time!
Surprisingly often in Whistler's forests you will find a tree growing on an old fallen tree or out of a decaying tree stump. Decaying logs and stumps in ...
Read more
Tom Fyles (27 June 1887 - 27 March 1979) was an astoundingly skilled climber that figured prominently in the climbing community of Vancouver for more than two ...
Read more
The sawmill at Parkhurst operated on the triangle of land that juts out into Green Lake and also extended north between the train tracks and the lake. The ...
Read more
Cornice: a wind deposited wave of snow on a ridge, often overhanging a steep slope or cliff. They are the result of snow building up on the crest of a ...
Read more
Whistler can be expensive. Everything worth doing seems to cost a lot of money. But if you step back from the noise and crowds you may spot some secret ...
Read more
Fitzsimmons Creek is the beautiful and huge creek that crashes through Whistler Village. When walking from Whistler Village to the Upper Village, you will cross ...
Read more
When you hike in the alpine in Whistler and Garibaldi Provincial Park, you will often encounter unbelievably hardy and sometimes mangled looking trees. ...
Read more
Alec Dalgleish (1 August 1907 - 26 June 1934) was a highly respected mountaineer and climber out of Vancouver in the 1920's and 1930's. His enthusiasm and ...
Read more
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
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 ...
Read more
Black Tusk is the extraordinarily iconic and appropriately named mountain that can be seen from almost everywhere in Whistler. The massive black spire of crumbling rock juts out of the earth in an incredibly ...
Read more
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 ...
Read more
Cheakamus River is a beautiful, crashing, turquoise coloured river that flows from Cheakamus Lake, through Whistler Interpretive Forest at Cheakamus Crossing, then down past Brandywine Falls to Daisy Lake. ...
Read more