Somehow me managed to remain snow-free during our visit to Pemberton, though the temperatures were a little lower than we’ve been accustomed to. The Sea to Sky corridor is renowned as an outdoor adventure destination thanks in part to trail systems developed around Whistler and Squamish. Pemberton wants to be a bigger part of the tourism action and the Sea to Sky Trail, which will be part of the Trans Canada Trail, will help them.
One Mile Lake sits just south of town where an accessible trail with boardwalks skirts its shore. This trail sees enormous traffic volume and the plan is to connect it via the new Sea to Sky Trail to Nairn Falls Provincial Park about two kilometres away. Right away we saw the potential for this new section of the Trans Canada Trail to become a gateway to an improved trail network on Signal Mountain. This could eventually replace the main network north of town which is slated for future development. It’s an ideal location for a new start and to make One Mile Lake in Pemberton resemble Lost Lake in Whistler.
First, we flagged a corridor up to the park boundary for the Trans Canada Trail and provided examples of pin flagged lines for 1.5 metre machine built tread. Then we found another corridor for a parallel singletrack route to climb the mountain to an existing trail called Lumpy’s. Finally, we laid out our project for the last day which was a reroute of the entrance to Lumpy’s to link it up with our new corridor.