Vancouver winter is no reason to stop hiking

When the weather (finally) starts to dip below zero on the West Coast, it signals that it’s time for many Vancouverites to stay inside. However, for some residents, going out in nature with other people is just what they need to get through the winter.

For Abdul Haseeb, who moved to the area three years ago from Pakistan, organizing community group hikes is a way of giving back.

“When I came to Canada, in winters people usually get depressed, anxious, they are always at home,” he says, adding that many people want to go on outdoor adventures, but don't always have the resources to make it happen.

Three weeks ago, he got the idea to start taking people out on weekend hikes for free, carpooling in his own car or in a convoy of vehicles.

“I thought, now I have a car, so let's help other people to enjoy it. People don't have money, so I said, I'm doing it for free so it doesn't cost anything,” he says. “If people are at home and the weather outside is rainy, grey weather, they feel depressed and I just don't want people to be like that. I want to take them out more so they can be happy.”

Originally, Haseeb started posting about hikes on a website called Meetup, but when that went nowhere, he started finding people on a Facebook group called Sunday Hike. Now he has his own website called VanHikers, where participants can coordinate over WhatsApp messaging.

On his first trip he took eight people out to Dog Mountain Trail, an easy five-kilometre hike from the top of Mount Seymour, about a 50-minute drive from Vancouver. The second hike was to Mount Seymour with 12 people, and by the third hike — last weekend — his group had expanded to 21 hikers for a trip out to Bowen Lookout at Cypress Mountain.

“I didn't expect that in the winter people would be interested in going out. But my idea worked out,” says Haseeb with a laugh.

As good as it is for mental health, winter hiking does come with risks, says Andrew Ihnativ, an experienced hiker and mountaineer who moved to Vancouver from Calgary almost ten years ago.

“Everything in winter is about snowshoes. You have to have microspikes for guarding against falls,” he says. “There are lots of opportunities, lots of routes that we use. However, there is one caveat, and it's avalanches.”

Proper gear like woollen clothing, ample food and water, and a functioning GPS system are important to the winter hiking experience, but it’s also crucial to check and know how to read up-to-date avalanche information on sites like Avalanche Canada.

In addition to the camaraderie and conversation of hiking in groups, Ihnativ says it also provides safety, especially in colder weather.

“I prefer very, very strongly to go with groups of people for safety reasons. I can — I never did — but I can easily twist a leg or break a leg,” he says. “If I break a leg and don't have means of communication, I'm dead at night. Night is not only painful, painful is okay, but it's going to be hypothermia eventually, depending on who will find me.”

Inexperience is an issue but even seasoned hikers and mountaineers sometimes push themselves and feel compelled to do “more and more and more,” says Ihnativ, who knows four people who have died hiking and climbing in the last three years, including 23-year-old Nikita Marwah who died in 2023 while ascending Canadian Border Peak.

On Jan. 13, four hikers were rescued from the alpine of Golden Ears Provincial Park after being stranded for four days during dangerous avalanche conditions, according to Ridge Meadows Search and Rescue, who extracted the group with help from Coquitlam Search and Rescue and Talon Helicopters.

North Shore Rescue also spent ten hours searching for, and finding, a missing hiker on St. Mark’s Summit on Christmas morning. It was one of three calls the search and rescue team had fielded within a period of 33 hours.

In October, a seasonal campaign launched by B.C.’s Search and Rescue Association and a coalition of partners including Avalanche Canada and Vancouver Coastal Health, seeks to encourage a stronger outdoor safety culture among locals and visitors. In their statement, the organization pointed to local search and rescue trends over the last two years which showed that approximately 74 per cent of winter callouts for assistance involved winter hiking.

None of this should discourage potential hikers however, as experience, careful planning and courses taught by professional guides can reduce a lot of the risks, says avid hiker Stephen Hui, who has explored the Vancouver area and beyond in all weather for more than 30 years.

In May, Greystone Books released an updated version of Hui’s bestselling book, 105 Hikes In and Around Southwestern British Columbia that includes 36 new hikes.

Hui’s fascination with hiking and scrambling — which involves going through steep terrain using three points of contact, like hands, for support — started as a child enrolled in Scouts and was further encouraged by school camping trips, including a week-long “history hike” in high school.

Growing up, he felt compelled to jot down things about his hikes like the length of time it took, or notable landmarks, though at the time he wasn’t sure why. These notes soon expanded into the book, and the newest version includes chapters on safety and the environment and a new foreword by Stó:lō historian Si:yémiya Albert (Sonny) McHalsie.

“When we go hiking we often go to beautiful places, and a lot of these beautiful places are sacred places to First Nations, so there's a responsibility to learn about them,” he says. “There's also a lot of land forms that have Indigenous names that say a lot about their stories and the people who are connected to them.”

Hui’s list of recommended hikes goes from north of Pemberton to Manning Park, and some of the new hikes are updated for length, accessibility and route changes.

The two biggest draws for Hui are the benefits of exercise that “doesn’t feel like exercise” and the mental health benefits of getting outdoors in all weather.

“Hiking is my favourite thing to do. It just kind of scratches all the itches, so I'm looking forward to getting out a lot this winter and getting some snowshoeing in too,” he says. “People think of hiking as a spring and summer thing, but really, you can hike all year round in our temperate climate.”