A trip for simple winter camping and to do some easy snowshoeing in Golden Ears Provincial Park

The trip is more for practicing winter camping and winter excursions in a lower risk environment. This would be a trip to test out new gear or practice skills. Golden Ears allows winter camping at Gold Campground, the fee is $13 (cash) per person per night. The website states there are pit toilets available during the winter however drinking water is not available.

for the hike:

Upper Gold Creek Falls via East Canyon Trail and West Canyon Trail Loop 10.4km loop, 390m elevation gain https://www.alltrails.com/explore/trail/canada/british-columbia/upper-falls-via-east-canyon-trail-and-west-canyon-trail-loop?u=i

The plan is to meet Saturday morning 9:30am at the West Canyon Parking Lot and do our selected hike. After the hike we will set up camp at Gold Campground. Trip officially ends at 9am Sunday morning.

Packing guide:

Each participant is responsible for their own gear, food, water, and other 10 essentials. Please review the MEC.ca links at the bottom to create your complete gear list for the trip.

If you do not have a cooking source & setup, first aid kit, GPS device, bear spray that is fine as we only need 1 for the entire group.

Please pack as if you did not have a safety net, such as your car being parked close by or the campground claiming to have pit toilets. We can review the weather the week before to see the need of spikes/crampons, snowshoes, or neither.

The avalanche risk is at the lowest for this area, level 1. Thus, AST1 is not required.

Park website: https://bcparks.ca/golden-ears-park/#park-overview-container

Park map: https://nrs.objectstore.gov.bc.ca/kuwyyf/golden_ears_park_map_d864feaf4f.pdf

Winter Camping guide from MEC

https://www.mec.ca/en/explore/winter-camping-gear-checklist

https://www.mec.ca/en/article/winter-camping-tips-26-things-beginners-should-know

https://bcparks.ca/golden-ears-park/