Anxious to get out on the trails? To get the hiking legs in shape, here are your best bets for the shoulder season in the Whistler/Pemberton area.
1. Tenquille Lake Trail, from the bottom of the valley. (I wrote about this in my last Tues post here: http://backcountryskiingcanada.....tenquille) This is the longest stretch of uphill snow free training I have found in this area – it'll get your legs and lungs burning and there are no mosquitos yet.
2. The new Mt Currie trail. Another steep, south facing sunny hike with lots of snow free elevation gain. You'll need 4WD and a few route finding skills here, but it's beautiful and dry the whole way up. The trail and access road pass through an active logging area so Sundays are probably the only day that it's possible to get in here right now.
3. Garibaldi Lake trail, from Rubble Creek. On Sunday the snow line was at 4.5km so even if you just go to this point and turn around, it's a great hike. The trail is so packed down from winter traffic you could walk or snowshoe the rest of the way without any trouble too.
4. Shorter hikes around Whistler: The Lost Lake trails are pretty much snow free aside from the odd patch. There are lots of trails in Cheakamus as well – Suspension Bridge, Sea to Sky trail, Logger's Lake that are good for the early season hikes.
Around Pemberton, the whole hill of hiking / biking trails in the MacKenzie area up to the Paraglide Launch are snow free too.
Next up will be Cheakamus Lake (below). I drove part way up the access road on Sunday but it was too snowy to go the whole way still. Maybe another week or two. This is one of the best trails for spring hiking.
Wedge, Helm Creek, Brandywine, Rainbow and Singing Pass all melt out much later, but you can count on the ones above, or head north into the Chilcotin to find some dry hikes too!
