July 12, 2006 | Tips from Us > Squamish, Camping
The kids and I woke up last Saturday to a beautiful sunny day, and decided to go on a spontaneous overnight camping trip. Knowing that many of the BC Parks camping grounds would be full, we headed out on one of the logging roads just north of
Squamish, and camped for free along the Squamish River. We drove past our usual camping locale and, lucky for us, found a campers dream come true – a perfect spot equipped with leftover firewood, a raised fire pit, easy access to the glacial-fed river and its sandbars, complete privacy, and a mountain view of two receding glaciers complete with waterfalls. Not bad for a 2 ½ hour drive from Vancouver (not counting the stop in Squamish to watch rock-climbing on the Chief and to fill our cooler with marshmallows, popcorn, hot dogs, ketchup, hot chocolate, and other mandatory camping fare).
Camping along B.C.’s logging roads doesn’t require a 4x4 – our little Mazda Protégé did just fine going 60 km/hour on the relatively smooth gravel road (I was pretending I was on a road rally!). Ironically, I got a flat tire on the newly paved highway on the way to Squamish (putting on spare and mandatory stop at Canadian Tire also not counted in our 2 ½ hour timecount… and thank you to the two cars who stopped to help), and yet made it through 40 miles of logging road unscathed. Check out this link for more info on
free camping in B.C.
If you are interested in seeing the mountains and glaciers on-the-move, the Squamish River has also become quite the hot spot for
river rafting. We saw four expeditions heading to the river as we were heading home.