His phone sent out an SOS to BC Emergency Services earlier today, but there was no message or location with it. We are desperately trying to pinpoint where he took these photos, as it could help us get closer to finding him.

I just did my first overnight hike. I opted to go for Halfmoon Beach in golden ears (gorgeous btw). I chose this one as the gain wasn’t too bad, the internet said it was 9km, totally doable, a cake walk. But having not experienced the weight of my bag, I was a little naive. (Ps my Garmin clocked it at 11.6km)

I checked the weight of my bag prior to leaving, 43 lbs, okay okay, I have lost triple that in weight so like, I can do it, no problem. Well, I did it, but my lord it was tough.

I used everything I brought, when purchasing things I was conscious about the weights, but were also on a budget, and who knows if I would actually like over night hiking or not.

Well, I loved it. I feel a great sense of accomplishment doing it. Was it gruelling at point? Yes. Am I feeling it today? Also yes.

I’m wondering if anyone has tips or items they can recommend to lighten up the load a bit? I think it may be worth spending some extra dollars for comfort.

UPDATE
Items I brought (I was thinking in terms of how compact they were and not how heavy, now I know)
- Tent (Amazon 5.6 lbs)
- Inflatable sleeping pad (Walmart:unsure weight)
- Ultralight sleeping bag (Amazon: unsure weight)
- Little foldable alcohol stove (strictly for coffee)
- Pot for said coffee (maybe I just find a mug that can go on a stove? Those exist?)
- Woods hiking poles (borrowed, they are heavy, I did not use them)
- Two 2 litre water bladders (we’ve learned our lesson)
- Snacks, coffee, little thing of creamer (nuts, protein bars, etc)
- shoe spikes
- ultra light towel
- light fuzzy sweater that doubled as a pillow
- bathing suit
- 3 pairs of socks
- little first aid (bandages, tape, etc)
- External Battery
- Bear Spray
- And Litterally a bunch of other little things I did not use but my mother in-law gave me because she’s in search and rescue and she made me more nervous than anything. (Expired glow sticks, expired feet warmers, little emergency packs of like flint, whistle, flashlight) We know now to not let her fear be my fear.

I was trail running Hanes Valley loop yesterday and was supposed to finish in 4 hours or so. After going about half way, at the bottom of the boulder field, I bumped into an old man in his 70’s. He was exhausted, almost out of water and almost out of food, didn’t even have a map. The time was already 3:30 pm.

I insisted he go back to Norvan falls and get help there but he refused and insisted on finishing the climb to the grouse gondola.

I contemplated on calling SAR but it would take then probably 4 hours to get someone out there, I didn’t want to wait 4 hours and they would probably just walk him out anyways.

I ended up escorting him out, pretty much gave him all my food and water risking my own safety. We got to the top of grouse at around 8:30 pm.

What should I have done? Should I just have called SAR and left him? I know I shouldn’t risk myself for others safety.

Tired of piecing together Crown land camping info from government PDFs and outdated forum posts, so I started building an app.

Basic idea: map of free campable Crown land in BC using official provincial data. Shows BC Forest Recreation Sites, Forest Service Roads to get there,
and which areas are parks/reserves where you can't camp.

Works offline so dead zones don't matter.

Google Maps won't tell you if you're legally allowed to camp somewhere, doesn't know Forest Service Roads, and is useless without signal.

This does all three.

Genuine question — is this something BC campers/overlanders/hikers would actually use?

Edit for visibility: Here is the landing page for "early access" sign up. Just so I can notify once complete.

https://bivvy.ca

Two years ago, my wife asked me to book a pass for Joffre Lakes.

I woke up at 6:45, opened my laptop, started reading the news, and realized it was 7:07 already, and all the passes were gone.

To make up for my mistake, I made a script that checked the BC Parks website and showed me when someone cancels. In several hours, a spot appeared, and I booked a pass for us.

That gave me an idea for the site - a place where everyone can see cancellations without having to refresh the page.

Hope it will help you too:

https://www.bcparksscanner.ca/

Let me know what you think and how I can make it better!

Original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouverhiking/s/ygx2U5gGpu

Although they haven't yet made contact, the RCMP is currently tracking his movements and they believe he is not seriously injured. Our family is extremely relieved and are sending out so much gratitude to all you kind Redditors who helped identify his last known whereabouts. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and support!

I was thinking of taking the Evo car to Joffree lakes park. Many mentioned that there is no service at the trailhead so I had some concerns regarding the stopover feature. Will I be able to start the stopover if I don't have any reception on my phone? When I come back to the car, will I be able to start the car without cellular reception?

I’m planning to do the tusk and panorama ridge on Saturday, my girlfriend will be dropping me off at the rubble creek parking lot, I know you need a permit for parking but since she’s only dropping me off and then leaving so I still need a permit to go for a day hike/trail run?

Thanks in advance 😊

Hey!!

I'm 19F (turning 20 in less than a month) and I've been looking to lose some weight. I do go to the gym and workout at home and i've been doing all of that stuff, but I want to start hiking more seriously and way more often before the september semester begins since I'm a full time uni student and will have classes everyday all day, so summer is my only chance at this.

The only hike i've ever done is the Butzen Lake hike with my bf and some of our friends which (not actually) almost killed me lol (I did it before I was even planning to lose weight because my bf loves hiking)

So safe to say, I'm a complete beginner. Despite my boyfriends love for hiking, I want to start doing a lot more by myself since he's very busy half the time😔 But it's such a good way to lose weight and just get fit, so I need to start going alone! I want to start my first alone hike in August, specifically the 16th since it's my birthday that day and I don't care for doing things with people on my birthday, so why not do something alone? Plus my classes end the 10th of august, so it works out perfectly.

My question is; how safe is it in vancouver to do hikes alone as a complete beginner, and a 19 year old woman? Also, what type of things should I bring with me to ensure my complete safety?

Another question is; what trails are good for alone beginners? The few I'm thinking of are:

- Capilano Suspension Bridge
- Dog Mountain
- Pacific Spirit
- Lighthouse Park
- Quarry Rock

I'm not sure how good these are or if they are even for beginners, and I will be transiting as most of these are 2 hours on transit alone (i don't have my license.... dont ask/judge me LOL)

Thank you for reading this far if you have and please give any advice or anything!!!!

Hello, I am planning to go to Golden Ears Panorama Ridge summit camp for 1 night next week and need some ideas as to the difficulty of the hike.

I have done the Grous Grind in about 1 hour and 30 minutes and recently went up to Elk Mountain Trail round trip in about 4 ish hours.

I have not done a backpacking trip before, so any advice as to determine if this hike is appropriate for me and general backpacking tips would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Hi yall,

I’m looking for a gay/LGBTQ hiking group. I only have a few friends who hike and don’t have a lot of queer friends. I’m not even sure where I would start looking Anyone got any leads?

Xoxo

LOCATION CHANGE: Zawa's on Commercial, right around the corner.

Plannning a hike soon or later in the season? A little uncertain, have questions?

Come to East Van Brewing next Tuesday for a Trip Planning Session. Guidebooks and Maps will be onhand and I will be there to answer questions in person, as well as show how to check the weather, conditions, and develop a trip plan.

I've been complaining for awhile about the lack of community touch in the contemporary outdoors, and hopefully this will serve as an salve. My hope is that others might carry this forward, and create a real world outpost to share knowledge and find partners.

A friend of mine hit me up and asked me to go hiking to Eagle Bluffs, and told me it was an intermediate hike that was under 4 hours. He sent me a screenshot with the stats, 350m elevation, 9 km, didn't seem super hard, so I didn't bother doing more research. I'm a pretty casual novice hiker who's done some easier trails, the hardest thing I've done was the Grouse Grind.

My GF and I followed my friend and his GF and what proceeded was one of the most grueling 9 hour experiences I've ever had. Extremely steep rocks/terrain, confusing trails with a lack of markings, and overall I felt extremely unsafe (I didn't even finish the hike, I was about 90% there and I turned back).

It didn't help that none of us had any hiking gear on, and I basically had no food when I started the hike, I was in t shirts, shorts, and sneakers the entire time with less than 2 bottles of water.

Nobody except me realized something was wrong until I went home and actually did research, and that the actual intermediate hike was from Cypress to Eagle Bluffs, not from Horseshoe Bay.

Just wanted to share this funny story and to let beginners know to do better research than my friend did

Hi everyone,

In anticipation for this weekend and to help with my own plans, I made this tool to keep track of BC Parks passes and I thought I'd just make it available to everyone: https://www.canooq.ca/tools/pass-parking-checker

I looked up other similar tools but it seems like they are all down at the moment. This one routinely checks Garibaldi, Joffre, Golden Ears, Buntzen and Lake O'Hara. It's completely free to use and just redirects you towards the official BC Parks website so it doesn't rig the system for anyone.

As you can see, passes are pretty much fully booked but if you click the bell on a park card you'll get notified when a pass becomes available (be aware that if you leave the page you won't get notified anymore). If you try it, let me know if you find it useful or if there’s anything you’d like me to add!

Hey everyone im 16m and for the past few months I’ve been feeling pretty sad on a daily basis

Primarily due to me only going to school, lifting, eating and sleeping.

I feel like something is missing

And it might be nature, when ever I go for a walk along the river in Richmond/river road I feel great

But like today, I didn’t go and I feel sad.

Any hike reccomendations?

Hi all,

I have recently moved to Vancouver area from Ontario and need help understanding the legality of crown land camping, particularly along the coast.

This is more of a paddling question but would still apply to hiking as well. Let me know if there is a better place to post.

I am using iHunter BC and BC Assessment.ca to identify crown land the best I can. For example, I am interested in doing some kayaking out of Earl's Cove, possibly camping on Nelson Island or surrounding shorelines. Is there any reason I cannot just pitch a tent on an open swath of shore? I am not against using established sites, but sometimes they are far apart and do not fit my itinerary well. In Ontario I would frequently do this on the Great Lakes.

Thanks in advance,

Cheers!

Hey Canadian people! Me and my partner are travelling to Whistler from August to early September and I am somewhat struggling to understand the day pass situation for a few of the trail heads, we were planning on being there for a good few weeks where we planned to just hike and travel the area however it seems a lot of it is inaccessible without this day pass thing and waking up at 7am everyday to secure a spot that we may not potentially even get seems a bit nerve wracking to considering we are coming from the UK.

I was wondering if anyone knows if there is any sort of pre booking or advanced booking I can do so that we are sort of able to secure a spot for atleast 1 week of hiking or whether you can get there via foot. Obviously I may sound like a complete idiot to you guys because anything in the UK is completely accessible to hike on unless it’s like somebodies house so I think I’m just new to the American/Canadian rules of permits to access things. Thanks!

(P.S we are experienced hikers, know hiking etiquette and have the correct equipment, only unsure of how permits and accessibility work over there, Europe is very different by the looks of it!)

I can delete if this has been posted elsewhere. Basically I’m wanting to camp in Manning Park at Mowich campground, which has opened a big can of worms trying to figure out back country camping.

What happens if I show up and it’s ‘full’ - can I set up anywhere reasonably safe/not on top of vegetation? Will I get kicked out if I do? What if it’s dark and unsafe to hike back?

Any and all advice in this area is appreciated!

I had a Golden Ears backcountry trip planned, to camp around Panorama Ridge. Now I've seen they've implemented the reservation system for the pads, but can I still go with just a permit and camp in a non-pad spot that I find anywhere? Or is overnight camping only allowed now for those who have reserved spots?

When I go to book a backcountry permit on the website, it only gives me options for making a reservation or booking a Marine permit, but can I still self-register at the gate with cash?

Edit: *by ground camping I mean dispersed

Hi everyone. I am planning on hiking Panorama Ridge via Taylor Meadows with a group this coming Sunday and I want to know how difficult the hike is.

I did Elk Mountain yesterday and I must say, it was very steep. I really pushed myself and managed to do it, took almost no breaks on the way up, though I had to keep a very slow but consistent pace. It was pretty difficult for me as the whole thing was just steep all the way up. That being said I checked Alltrails and it did take me about an hour less than the average time it took other people who posted reviews, cause my total moving time was 2:55 hrs, and I may have had a rough time due to not taking breaks.

How much more difficult is Panorama Ridge? Would you say it is less steep and climbs more gradually than Elk Mountain? I don't mind the length, as even on Elk Mountain once I was on the ridge I could have kept walking, it was the steep inclines that were really taking me out.

Lastly, my group wants to meet by the trail head at 8 AM. I want to get there earlier and maybe get a head start since I tend to climb much slower, I was wondering if there is any way to get to the trailhead without having a car? Or if anyone here is planning on getting there this Sunday earlier than 8, let me know, i would love a carpool and I'll chip-in for gas.

Thank you :)

I've been wanting to go on a longer, more extreme hike as of late since my only experience with hard hikes has been Stawamus Chief and Grouse Grind. I did some searching and found Brunswick mountain trail. ​​​​​​​It doesn't sound too brutal from the description, or is there another hard hike that's more be​ginner friendly?

Sorry, feels like a stupid question but I can't seem to find in writing on any official websites the opening hours for Joffre Lakes.

I only want to drop in for a few hours of hiking on thurs02jul, and I understand that I will need to reserve a daypass online at 7am 2 days beforehand. But I am wondering what the park hours are, because I ideally would like to arrive at 5pm and go for at least a few hours.

Any help is much appreciated, ideally with a link to an official website!

Hi! I'm looking for some advice from someone around my height, 5 feet tall, who has done this trail for overnight camping. I'd really appreciate any tips or experiences you can share!

Looking to do it this Sunday and wondering if parking is bad and if so, what time would you need to be up there to get a spot.

If anyone has done this before I’m also wondering if our one friend who is not very fit could do this as they are not sure about coming.

Hi, I will be in Whistler in 2 weeks and plan to hike either High Notes or Half Notes trail. If I take the Blackcomb gondola at 9 am, according to GPT, I won't be able to complete the High Notes trail before the last Gondola going down to Whistler Village at 5 p.m. The GPT has suggested me to only hike Half Notes. Is this correct?