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Related Travel Information
Category: Squamish
Four Lakes Trail – Alice Lake Provincial Park
Many years ago, we bought a book called 109 Walks. It’s one of those books you pull off the shelve every now and then to be ambitious when you are a city slug in a pandemic wanting to feel less locked in. The walking team picked Four Lakes Trail at Alice Lake Provincial Park. They set out from Vancouver and took the Upper Levels Highway (99) and drove about 12 km past Squamish to Alice Lake Road. At the Park it turned out the parking closer to the HQ was full, but there were lots right near Alice Lake itself […]
Brittania Mine Museum, Brittania Beach
If you’ve ever been to Whistler by car, you have zoomed past the Brittania Mine Museum. During our spring break up to Whistler, we decided to add a 75 minute stop to tour the BMM. We were glad we did. It’s a national historic site and museum so it’s loaded with history and points of interest for all ages. We took the underground train tour and found it very informative. It gave us a flavour for what life was like for the miners who did such risky work. Our 7 year old was chosen to be a shovel wielding ‘mucker’ […]
Whistler: a Â…summer tourist mecca or a place to fling oneself roughly down a mountain?
It has been many years since going to Whistler. My family doesn’t ski or snowboard and thus there has been a low desire to take effort to travel from Vancouver to Whistler. When the 2010 Winter Olympics were announced and the subsequent Highway 99 (Sea-to-Sky) upgrade was started, many of us Vancouver types stayed off the road. For years. Recently during a weekend getaway with my kids in Squamish, I thought, what the heck. It’s summer, the scenery will be amazing and Whistler is only an hour away. And when I say an hour, I mean it literally. From the […]
Shannon Falls
Shannon Falls Provincial Park is a favourite spot of mine in BC because it allows you to enjoy the stunning scenery without much effort. Of course old aphorisms stating the journey is more important than the destination were composed by people who never sat beside a chain smoker in withdrawal on a 12 hour flight from London to Cape Town or hiked up a BC mountain with bad knees. Regardless, Shannon Falls is 335 m (1105 ft.) of wonder. When you pull into the parking lot, if it’s a beautiful day, it will likely be full. There was no signage […]
Squamish Top 6 Things to See and Do
Obviously if you’re like me and have not been to Squamish since before the 2010 Winter Olympics, things have changed. A lot. But for those of you looking for more background, Squamish is the first real town north of Vancouver and West Vancouver. You truly feel past the point of sane commuting. (I hear stories of people doing Squamish-Vancouver commutes, but this induces the same scepticism that I have when I hear stories of people bending spoons with their mind powers.) The Sea-to-Sky Highway (#99) is well named as the scenery up to Squamish is stunning as you wind your […]
Movie Sets and Mining at Britannia Beach
You may know that one of Vancouver‘s nicknames is ‘Hollywood North’ because so many Hollywood movies have been made in and around the city in the last couple of decades. It’s not just Vancouver that’s frequently been used as a movie set though; in fact there are countless communities, parks and areas of coastline that have doubled for many other locations around the world, and the small community of Britannia Beach, on the Sea to Sky Highway from Vancouver to Whistler, has seen more than its fair share of movie and TV stars. In fact over 50 movies, and numerous […]
The Scenic Sea to Sky Highway
Around the world there are scenic highways that are renowned for their beauty, and that must be driven on at least once in your life; well here in Canada that road is the Sea to Sky Highway, and, on a clear day at least, this is one of the most scenic stretches of road you’ll find anywhere. The Sea to Sky Highway is officially named Highway 99 and this most famous stretch of it runs along the coast from Horseshoe Bay in West Vancouver, and heads 134 kilometres (83 miles) north, passing through Lions Bay, Squamish, Whistler and eventually Pemberton. […]
Climbing the Squamish Chief
Getting outside Vancouver is an easy adventure now that the upgrades to the SEA to SKY highway has been mostly completed and there are now more lanes to speedily make way to Squamish, a small town between Vancouver and Whistler. A hidden gem exists here that you must see: The Stawamus Chief. Its brooding profile rises 650 meters from sea level, about 1.5 times taller than the world’s tallest building. What lured me here was its granite face also well known to other climbers around the world as being “the best” rock to climb on. A short 45 minute drive […]
