Saturday fun at Watersprite Lake

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Weekends in Squamish seems a little overwhelmed last couple of years, but I can still get away from crowds at a famous local hiking area.

I usually work on weekends, so I can be away from people flooding into Sea to Sky. Today, it was different. I hiked to one of the most famous hiking destination in Squamish; Watersprite Lake.

I left my home at 7:00, and Squamish was still quiet. Living in Squamish is definitely an advantage for sure. Many people from Vancouver arrives to Squamish around 8:00am, so this one hour difference makes my journey smooth and fast.

The access to Watersprite trailhead is by Mamuquam FSR. It is 20km long and takes approximately one hour. Follow the main road until Skookum Creek Power Project, then turn left. The road gets rough from here. There are few spurs turning uphill, but ignore them and continue onto the main road. The road goes down and there are bridges. A big tree bottom is on the road. Then, the parking is at the end of the road, and cars are parked on left side.

The drive took us an hour. We were at the parking by 8:16 and there were already 17 cars. I would say that most of them were there from the day before and for camping. We saw 4 other cars coming along us.

We started hiking at 8:17. The trail was easy to find. It started from a yellow gate and there was a trail kiosk. The trail started as gravel road, then some boardwalks. It soon went inside a forest and uphill. The forest trail connected to another gravel trail, and Watersprite lake trail turned right here. Then we followed main trail 40 minutes until we saw another trail kiosk.

It was 9:26 when we came to the 2nd kiosk. The trail stayed at the same elevation from here to the final uphill to the lake. This part of trail was on southwest side of Demon ridge and there were no place to hide from the sun after 10:00am. We passed this section before 10:00am, but it was already hot.

I highly recommend to bring lots of water if you are hiking mid day.

After long travers with some boulder fields, the trail went in a forest. Then, we came to the final uphill. The trail was dusty and slippery, but fairly easy.

At 10:20, we saw a cabin. Then Watersprite Lake!! I recorded my trip with gaia App and it said 2 hours and 7 minutes. It was faster than we guessed, and we were happy with the time.

The lake shore was still quiet. We saw more people on the other side, where all the campers were at. We started walking clockwise around the lake. The north side was filled with big boulders and less people, so we stopped on a big flat boulder for lunch.

We spent about 2 hours eating, chatting, and swimming. The water was cold, but it was perfect for a quick dip. It completely took my body heat away and cooled me down. It was what we needed after 2 hours of the sun baked hike.

After our lunch break, we continued hiking around the lake and checked out the campground. There were about 8 campsites near the lake. Then, we checked out the BCMC cabin and started our way down by 13:00.

We rushed on our way down, because my friend had to work from 16:00. We only stopped for water. By 14:43, we were back at the parking. There were still many hikers going up, and some of them were with camping gears. I was pretty sure that there were not enough campsites for everyone. If you wanted to camp there, I suggest to get there early.

We counted how many cars were there as we left the parking at 14:50, and there were 88 cars!! Anyway, we were back on HWY99 by 15:35. Of course, he made it to his shift at Taka Ramen!