Words by: Brent Hillier   Photos by: Brent Hillier & Eli Relke


The early season continues! With a new set of wheels, Eli and I decided to go find winter... again.

On December 11th we set out for another mis-adventure to the Elfin Lake area.

Words by: Brent Hillier   Photos by: Brent Hillier & Eli Relke

With first snowfall back in September it seemed like we were going to have a quick start to the 2013/14 Winter. That unfortunately, had not been the case, the first ski trip of the season was full of early season pit falls. (Bushy Kickturns, Coreshots and Broken Promises)

Trip number two was was underway and we had set our sights on a much easier approach. None of us were in the mood for a repeat of our Duffy trip.

Eli Relke, Fraser Pike and myself (left to right) make our way up from the Diamond Head parking lot to Elfin Lakes.

Words by: Brent Hillier   Photos by: Brent Hillier & Eli Relke

Eli Relke and I had set our sights on a big trip for the season, or perhaps a more accurate way of describing it is that I had convinced him it was a good idea. Never the less we decided to get our feet wet with another trip first. So we headed to where many mountain bikers had gone before, the Elfin Lake Hut. Situated in Garibaldi Provincial Park at 1470m, the upper most parking lot is at 950m, which in the winter makes it a very manageable ski tour. In order to give ourselves more of a ride we decided to start our adventure from the city of Squamish at 40m above sea level. We began our climb at about 8:30 and worked our way through some of Squamish's expanded climbing only trail network. At the top of the new climb we hike-a-biked up Cakewalk and saved some time by cutting out a switchback on the road. After a quick lunch we were back to climbing up the road towards the upper parking lot. From there the climb to Red Heathers was slightly more difficult then in the winter with skis. Something both Eli and myself had exclusively only done in that area.