Nature Vancouver

Trip report - hike to Whistler Interpretive Forest and Crater Rim - Wednesday 1 July 2009

Early in the summer, most of the higher trails still have significant amounts of snow on them, but we’re still keen on getting out on mid-elevation hikes with little or no snow and just enough elevation gain to warm us up for the more strenuous trips. The Canada Day holiday is the first real date for summer hiking for many of us, and this year thirty of us came out to explore an area well-known to Whistler locals but largely unknown to others.

The Whistler Interpretive Forest is maintained by the Regional Municipality of Whistler, the Ministry of Forests and Western Forest Products, and is accessed by several roads and a maze of trails on both sides of the Cheakamus River. The entry point is the Function Junction intersection on Highway 99 on the southern edge of Whistler; the turnoff is signed Cheakamus Lake Road. The road soon splits: the main road is now a wide paved road which crosses the river on a new high bridge and serves a large construction site which used to be the landfile site and is soon to be the Whistler Olympic athlete’s village; the Eastside Main first branches off left to Cheakamus Lake, then the Westside Main crosses a low bridge to continue southwest and ultimately reach the Black Tusk microwave tower.
                               
There are a number of small parking spots along the Westside Main to make any length of trip possible; we started from the large parking lot right off Highway 99 and followed the Riverside Trail. The first section of this trail, before it crosses the Eastside Main, is posted with a number of interpretive signs which give a good basic lesson in the ecology of the local forests. Highlights seen here were large quantities of dwarf dogwood (Cornus canadensis) carpeting the ground, sickletop lousewort (Pedicularis racemosa) and a large patch of pink-flowered wintergreen (Pyrola asarifolia) near the trailhead.

We took our time listening for birds and watching for interesting plants; along here we found an uncommon round-leaved rein-orchid (Platanthera orbiculata) and a yellow phase of the otherwise common spotted coralroot (Corallorhiza maculata). The people at the tail end of our group got to see a black bear cross the trail behind them; the bear was wearing a radio collar but apparently was unconcerned with us.

“Riverside Trail” may be a bit of a misnomer, especially at the start, and has rather more up and down than might be expected, but is a good trail with many access points to the river for nearly two kilometres before it climbs to bypass a canyon in the river, followed by a brief descent to a magnificent new suspension bridge high over the river. The bridge leads to the Eastside Main and a few trails which are not heavily used by walkers but are by bikes. A digression: why can they build such a bridge here for bikes but they can’t build one over False Creek?

Shortly after the bridge, the trail returns to the road and the Loggers Lake parking lot; regular cars can drive this far on the road. A short but steep walk on an old road brought us to the lake and our lunch stop. From there, we began a steady climb up the Crater Rim trail which circles part of the lake following a basalt ridge. Most sources I consulted about the trail identify it as an ancient volcano or a vent, but David Cook’s opinion is that it is more likely an eroded levee from a lava flow. Starting near the lake we left behind the western red-cedar and hemlock of the Riverside Trail for Douglas-fir and lodgepole pine, which then gave way on the north side of the Crater Rim to yellow-cedar and western white pine.

A few good viewpoints included one directly south to the Black Tusk, one southwest to Mounts Fee, Brew and Cloudburst, and one north to Wedge Mountain and Mount Currie.  Another collared bear, or possibly the same one as earlier, made an appearance in the woods near the summit, paying us no attention whatsoever.

Part of the Ridge Trail, following another old skid road, brought us back to the river and the walk out. This route has a round trip of about 8 kilometres with an elevation gain of about 330 metres; possibly half the distance and one third of the elevation could be cut out by driving further up the road. It took us about six and a half hours to do the circuit but it can be done by fast hikers in four.

For more information, see                                    
http://www.trailpeak.com/trail-River-Side-to-Crater-Rim-Whistler-Interpretive-Forest-near-Whistler-BC-4754
http://www.whistler.ca/images/stories/PDF/Parks/InterpretiveForest.pdf
   
Birds seen or heard:

Sooty Grouse
Red-breasted Sapsucker (at a nest hole)
Vaux’s Swift
Rufous Hummingbird
Warbling Vireo
Cliff Swallow
Northwestern Crow
Chestnut-backed Chickadee
Red-breasted Nuthatch
Winter Wren
Varied Thrush
American Robin
Swainson’s Thrush
Townsend’s Warbler
Orange-crowned Warbler
Western Tanager
White-crowned Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco