Vancouver is surrounded by seemingly endless hiking trails and mountains to explore. Massive parks line up one after another. Mount Seymour Provincial Park, Lynn Park, Grouse, Cypress and the enormous Garibaldi Provincial Park all contribute to Vancouver being a hiking paradise.
VancouverHikingMaps
There are plenty of moderately challenging Vancouver hiking trails to choose from. These are five trails that stand out from the rest. Not too difficult, yet all have sensational views. Hollyburn, Dog Mountain and Seymour are at the end of beautiful drives to reach the trailheads.
The High Falls Creek hike is a great hike not only for the beautiful scenery in and around the trail, but the drive to it as well. The often passed by Squamish Valley Road, opposite the Alice Lake Provincial Park access road, is wonderful. This glacier carved valley stretches on and on, along the majestic Squamish River. The trail is well marked and though steep at times is moderately challenging.
There are some short chain assisted areas to climb and overall the trail is fairly steep. You quickly gain 622 metres in about 4 kilometres. Past the beautiful falls viewpoints the trail leads to a few more viewpoints before ending at the Branch 200 FSR. You can either turn back and retrace your steps to the trailhead parking. Most prefer to walk the forest service road back to their car instead. It is much longer (almost 2 kilometres longer), but it is easy and relaxing and there are some stunning views of the river valley below. This road takes you back to the S Main FSR where you will turn left onto and walk about 1.4 kilometres to get back to your car. Tricouni Meadows and Peak are located near High Falls Creek and the Tricouni trail actually follows along High Falls Creek for some distance far above the High Falls Creek trail. To get to the Tricouni trailhead it is best to drive (instead of hiking from High Falls) as it is a few kilometres beyond the High Falls Creek trail.
Elfin Lakes in Garibaldi Park is an absolutely phenomenal, though long, hiking, biking, snowshoeing and skiing trail that begins at the Diamond Head area in Squamish. From Whistler Village, the trailhead is ...
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 growth forest to get to the base of the falls. From ...
The Chief is the mammoth rock face that towers over Squamish. Though hardly believable from looking at, the summit is an easy two hour hike. In fact there are three peaks, South (First), Centre (Second), and ...
The High Falls Creek hike is a great hike not only for the beautiful scenery in and around the trail, but the drive to it as well. The often passed by Squamish Valley Road, opposite the Alice Lake Provincial ...
The short, scenic and easy hiking trail to Rainbow Falls is found at the same, much more well known trailhead for Rainbow Lake. The trailhead is marked as the Rainbow Trail and the trail quickly ascends ...
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 ...
Callaghan Lake Provincial Park is a relatively untouched wilderness of rugged mountainous terrain. The valley walls were formed by relatively recent glaciation. Evidence of this can be seen in the ...
Russet Lake is a surreal little paradise that lays at the base of The Fissile. The Fissile is the strikingly bronze mountain visible from Whistler Village. From the Village look into the distance at the Peak2Peak ...
Mt Fromme is the thickly forested Mountain next to Grouse Mountain. If looking from the direction of downtown Vancouver, Fromme is just to the right. It is infrequently hiked, at least partly due to the high number ...
Coliseum Mountain is one of several beautiful hikes in the Lynn Valley's beautiful Lynn Headwaters Regional Park. It's not terribly difficult, but it is very long. 12 kilometres from the trailhead to the ...
Burnaby Mountain, just 30 minutes east of downtown Vancouver has a nice network of popular trails with fantastic views of Vancouver, Burrard Inlet and beyond. The trails link to the wonderful Trans Canada ...
St Mark's Summit is a relatively easy way to get hiking deep into Vancouver's amazing mountains. Starting this hike at Cypress means you drive most of the elevation. Even though you still have another ...