Conditions

It’s always worth checking the weather before embarking on any backcountry trip. Though you should always be prepared for ANY conditions (within reason), a quick look at Environment Canada is highly recommended. Unisys Weather also can be a useful tool to predict weather fronts over the next several days.

Knowing how to read the weather when you are on the water or in the backcountry can be even more valuable. Ecomarine offers a course on weather theory and marine forecasts.

Lastly, knowing when sunrise and sunset happens is crucial for returning home safely so don’t forget to factor it into your trip plans.

Avalanche risks and snow levels are two of the biggest reasons to go to the web for latest updates. Avalanche.ca is a great hub for getting to all regional and national avalanche reports. They even offer an online flash course to help you educate yourself. Snow levels might take a bit more investigation. Any of the specific locations, and trail report links will usually be your best source of information. More links are also provided in the Wanderung Winter Resource page.

Water based trips involve far more variables than those that are land based, such as winds, currents and tides. A VHF radio is one the best tools to have with you on a trip to determine these conditions, and should be used at least twice a day so that the weather doesn’t catch you off guard. Always use proper operation procedures when using a VHF radio or risk expensive fines.

Tides, currents and water levels for BC can be found at the Oceans and Fisheries page. However, make sure you bring a copy with you for multi-day trips. Knowing how to read these is just as critical as having the information at hand, Ecomarine offers a number of courses on this topic. A good understanding of tides and currents can allow you to shorten the duration of your trip by working with the daily conditions.

Just like checking for the condition of a trail, it is always worth knowing what to expect on the highways or logging roads that you will need to be driving to get to the trailhead:

• Drive BC – Up-to-date BC road events and conditions. Includes construction and natural obstacles such as washouts. It even has webcams for things such as border crossings.

• Forest Service Road Updates – Up-to-date information and rules regarding use of forest service roads. HEADLIGHTS ON AT ALL TIMES

Sometimes people discover a link that is the holy grail of current conditions for a specific area. This sort of information can make trip planning much easier so that no one is surprised by 2 metres of snow when they expected a clear trail. We will continue to add to this section as those links are discovered.

Mt Seymour Weather Forecast – Only in available in Winter, this forecast link offer very localized Alpine Recreation conditions for Seymour, but also could offer clues for other North Shore mountains.

Whistler Alpine Weather Forecast – A very detailed report of conditions in the Whistler area including freezing levels, snow line and recent snow conditions. Also very informative in Summer for all Whistler and Pemberton based trips.

Garibaldi Park Trail Conditions [PDF] – If only all links could be as good as this one. Very specific information about specific trails in Garibaldi park including singing Pass, Wedgemount Lake, Diamond Head, and everything around Garibaldi Lake. This resource states when it was last updated (usually weekly) and offers realistic expectations about if a trail is really too dangerous to use at a given time. In addition, it offers abundant information about the trails themselves such as distance and elevation gain.

Manning Park Trail Conditions [PDF] – As for Garibaldi, Manning Park also provides updates for all trails within the park. Unfortunately it is not updated as frequently as Garibaldi. Distances are given for each trail.

Mt. Baker Trail Conditions – Another nice table of current snow levels for the numerous hikes found in the Mt. Baker area (Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest).

Wanderung trail reports are not only a good clue as to what recent conditions are in a given area, but the archives can give you an idea of snow levels etc. were in past years around the same time. This should give you an idea what kind of information can be of the most value to provide in the reports you submit!

Wanderung also has a discussion forum on Facebook which often has information on trail updates. Please feel free to sign up and contribute your knowledge to the discussion.

Club Tread is another hike website where people post recent trip experiences and has a huge membership base. Conditions are frequently discussed here.