Petgill Lake

Something to do on a Sunday

This hike has a few things going for - it's fairly close to Vancouver (you park at Murin lake, before Squamish), it is apparently open more of the year than most hikes and there is a lake. The reality is a little less ideal - the Park lots charges for parking, most of the hike is in the trees and the lake isn't much to at. But it was something to do on a Sunday.

The hiking environment is quite similar to parts of the chief - forest so thick that the forest floor is nearly dead and large rock outcroppings emerging to break up the forest.

Because there aren't views to Howe sound (save one), most of the beauty is in the details. This forest was logged sometime in the last 50 years (says this uneducated forester), so much of the life is at the same stage. A few trees that had died became sources of living space for shelf fungus.

Other parts of the trail were showing other specialized plants. In a springy bed under pine trees we found (once) a stand of an orchid - way to early in the season to see flowers. In a wet place on the trail, I found some beautiful violets just about under foot.

As we got near the lake we found a boggy bit with a large bloom of Skunk Cabbage. Seeing so many yellow flowers at the same time was quite a surprise - I didn't know the plants all come into bloom at the same time, but it only makes sense.

Once you get to the lake, you are kind of, well, underwhelmed. The view of the mountains (when the clouds weren't obscuring them) was nice, but not that much more that what you can see from your car about 4 hours ago. The lake is tiny and isn't particularly inviting - lunch was had on the cliffs overlooking. Not wanting to miss anything, we explored a side trail which I suspected circumnavigated the lake.

I was glad I went to the effort - the trail actually lead to a spectacular view point showing Howe Sound from it's mouth to Squamish. It's similar to the view from the Stawamus Chief and the chief is a shorter hike, but often very busy.