From Sea to Sky

The Northshore Mountains feature some of the steepest relief next to the ocean of anywhere in North America – from sea level to over 5000 ft in less than two miles! I have driven by these mountains many times on my way to Whistler and Squamish, but never done the ultra classic Howe Sound Crest Trail which traverses the peaks above. After four days on the Icewine High Route, John and I decided to check out part of the trail on our way home, doing a loop from Lions Bay.

Lions Bay is a bougie neighborhood along the Sea to Sky Highway with gorgeous designer homes above the water. Since we were doing a loop from Unnecessary Mountain to Brunswick, we parked down at the school, where there is a decent sized free parking lot.

Unnecessary Mountain is a much less popular trail than Brunswick, but people have put a decent amount of work into signage and aid through the steepest cruxes. We ran into a nice local out for his morning walk who warned us about the steepness. With the remarkable popularity and ruggedness of the Howe Sound Crest Trail, he was probably seen plenty of rescues. Recently, a group of teenagers were rescued from this trail after Google Maps told them that the 18 miles would take only 5 hours!

The trail was actually pretty nice, with only a few steeper sections that had handlines. When we started, it was already 70F at the car, and in the high humidity of the forest, we were sweating like crazy. There is no water on this climb, so plan ahead!

The alpine began just above 4k, with views starting to emerge from the trees. At the summit of Unnecessary, we had great views of the length of the Howe Sound, although it was still hazy from wildfire smoke.

One of my favorite views is to see mountains tower over the ocean. We don’t quite get this anywhere in the lower 48 – the Olympics or Cascades never quite bump straight up against the water. Even though it is very “basic”, I’ve wanted to do the Howe Sound Crest Trail for many years to see the best fjord in the Pacific Northwest! It is insane how rugged these peaks are, while being so close to the ocean and millions of people in Vancouver.

I knew that the view of the sound would be incredible, but I was also impressed with the rugged Coast Mountains in the other directions.

North of Unnecessary Mountain, the Howe Sound is incredibly rugged. Scrambling down roots, up rocks, never flat. It is legit class 2-3 in many places. I don’t think I fully processed how rugged it would be going in. Sure I had heard it was rugged, but plenty of normal hikers do it. As always, I was blown away by how tough your average BC hiker is. This trail makes most Cascades approach trails seem like a highway!

West Lion is the hardest scramble on route. It starts with a downclimb into a notch (class 5 if you free it, but there is a fixed line you can use). Then we did an exposed traverse rightward, but the fixed chain makes it feel very secure. From there, there is more mixed class 3-4 rock and root scrambling. It is actually a really enjoyable scramble on solid rocks and trees. I can imagine there are probably rescues up here weekly with how popular it is!

The next section is hilarious – it looks like a gentle ridgeline on Caltopo, but is actually a series of brutally steep ups and downs over a bunch of small peaks. We were both severely rationing water at this point, over 7,000 ft gain into the day in the hot sun.

It was incredibly tempting to skip Harvey and book it to the upcoming water source, but we decided to thug it out and bag the peak. The scramble was surprisingly chill with just a little bit of class 3.

We were both completely parched when we reached the small tarn to Magnesia Meadow. We drank copious amounts of water and took a nice lunch break before continuing on.

The trail actually got much flatter as we got closer to Brunswick. After encountering only two people all day, we ran into a bunch of hikers on the final push up to the summit of Brunswick. There are multiple false summits, with some easy class 2-3 scrambling between them.

The best view of the Howe Sound actually comes from one of the lower summits of Brunswick.

Brunswick was a much nicer trail for a descent, especially after reaching the old logging road around 3500 ft. It provides a very runnable grade all the way down from there!

The Howe Sound Crest Trail is one of the most unique and rugged trails I have ever been on! The views were in your face, and so was the vert. Without two cars for a shuttle, I think this loop hit some great highlights. It was a great way to end our trip to BC!

Notes:

• Our loop was nearly 10k ft gain in only 17 miles – very steep! It took us a bit over 9 hours.
• If you want to get the views without the ruggedness of the trail, I’d recommend just hiking Brunswick, or hiking Unnecessary Mountain from Cypress at the southern end of the trail. The section between the Lions and Harvey is low key brutal, and completely dry at this time of year.
• I wouldn’t do Lions to Harvey if you aren’t comfortable with class 3 scrambling. There are fixed lines in the actual class 3 sections and the exposure is limited, but I think it would just be very slow if you aren’t comfortable with scrambling roots and rocks.