Come winter, it will provide access to backcountry skiing. The ascent takes about 10 minutes and provides riders access to hiking trails, viewing platforms and a suspension bridge. The gondola rises nearly 3,000 feet beside Shannon Falls from the sound to a summit lodge. Visitors who want another way to see Howe Sound from on high have been able to take the new Sea to Sky Gondola ( just outside Stawamus Chief Provincial Park. All told, locals say, the Squamish area has nearly 1,200 routes at Shannon Falls, Murrin Park, Malamute and Little Smoke Bluffs. We also watched rock climbers ascend some of the more than 300 nearly vertical paths that snake up the face of the Chief. But we paced ourselves and were rewarded with stunning views of Howe Sound and the snow-covered peaks in the Coast Range.
On a few occasions, we had to squeeze through narrow passages and use a chain bolted into the rock to ascend a steep pitch. On the first day, my 25-year-old son Matt and I hiked up the backside of the Chief on a path that started out moderately steep and then got steeper, following a twisting route more than 1,500 feet to the top of the massif and its three rounded peaks. But it took me a couple of decades to finally stop and visit the for four days last summer.
I’d heard stories about the great rafting, hiking, rock climbing, mountain biking, sea kayaking, kite boarding and other activities that have earned Squamish the reputation as one of Canada’s main outdoor recreation meccas. And each trip, I would gaze at the Stawamus Chief, a granite monolith that rises more than 2,100 feet above Howe Sound and that looks as if it had been plucked out of Yosemite National Park.
I’ve driven through this burg of roughly 17,000 souls, about halfway between Vancouver and the skiing and snowboarding resort of Whistler Blackcomb, more than a dozen times.