Fall Colours: Hiking Skyline Ridge Trail, Sea to Sky Gondola

Great fall colours with view to Mt. Habrich—C.Helbig

There’s something about the colours of fall—the warm russets, shimmering golds, and bold scarlets—that make hiking during this season particularly enjoyable and inspire me to get on the trails. Recently, I had a glorious day on Skyline Ridge Trail at the Squamish Sea to Sky Gondola with fellow hiking enthusiasts Nicole and Jane. I’ve posted about this hike before, as part of an amazing, mildly scary loop from Sky Pilot Valley and over Copilot Ridge. This time we did Skyline Ridge as an out and back hike (not at all scary) of  22-24 km (7-8 hours). It’s a stunning hike and the fall colours are icing on the cake.

Epic Hike: Sky Pilot Valley to Skyline Ridge—Squamish, British Columbia

Skyline Ridge Trail, Squamish—C.Helbig

My friend Eva (the Swedish mountain goat) pushes me slightly beyond my hiking comfort. That’s a good thing, and inevitably it turns into an epic day. This time she introduced me to the Sky Pilot Valley—Skyline Ridge loop, a backcountry route accessed from the top of the Squamish Sea to Sky Gondola (about an hour from downtown Vancouver). During our roughly 8-hour, 23ish km hike we scrambled up rocky slopes and snow chutes, traversed exposed ridges, and clung to branches as we “tarzaned” our way down precipitous terrain (plus a bit of easy stuff too). It was exciting, challenging, fun, and the scenery was out of this world.