Radium Lake

Statistics

Directions

Take Chilliwack Lake road to the official entrance to the Provincial Park. Turn right into the campground and go to it's far end, where the Chilliwack River leaves Chilliwack Lake. There you will find a nice bridge that crosses the river to a nice path on the other side that heads west. Take this trail west around 2 km where the true trailhead to Radium Lake can be found.

From the Chilliwack Lake Provincial Park Day Use Area Parking: (no worries of getting a parking ticket here)

Take Chilliwack Lake road to the official entrance to the Provincial Park. Follow the signs to the Day Use area and park there. Take the trail to the north along the lake and follow it keeping left and not branching off until you come to a wide trail, then turn left to the trailhead on the right going over the foot bridge.

Details

**Just wanted to add a update July 19 2009** Radium suspension bridge is broken and a number of signs say it is closed. The bridge can still be used but extreme care is required to pass the broken support plate. Which supports one side of one section in the middle of the bridge. Below is a picture showing the exact broken piece

From the above true trailhead, the trail more or less follows the Radium Creek drainage; crossing the creek a few times, but there is a nice network of bridges that cross the creek, so fording is not necessary. The trail is well marked to Radium Lake, which is roughly a 3 hour hike from the real trailhead, or closer to a 4 hour hike from the Chilliwack Lake Provincial Campground.

You can also continue up past Radium Lake via a pretty good trail up to the col between Mt. Webb on your left and Mt. MacDonald on your right. From here Mt. Webb is a bit of a routefind but fairly straightforward. Allow around 45 minutes to gain Webb summit from the col, and a good hour to reach the col from Radium Lake.

Radium Lake is a shallow lake with an emerald green color. There used to be a shelter there, but the roof has long since caved in, so it's no longer useable.

Here is the history of the trail.

In the early 1960's Adrie Schaap and Gordie Dmytryshyn working out of Center Creek prison lead a group of young offender’s on a program called the outward bound program. They were ordered to build a fire look out to watch out over Chilliwack Lake. From scratch the inmates built this entire trail over a 2 year period of time. The cabin was built as an emergency shelter for the inmates in case of bad weather. I was told that all the supplies brought up for the cabin where carried on the backs of the inmates with the exception of one item an old oil powered fridge which was lifted in by helicopter.

Photographs

GPS Waypoints

Trailhead	N49.08940 W121.45610	10U 612721 5438542
Chilliwack River Bridge	N49.08374 W121.45843	10U 612563 5437909