The Sea-to-Sky is an area in Lower Mainland, British Columbia from the North Shore of Greater Vancouver to Pemberton and all points in between. It is connected by Highway 99 commonly called the Sea-to-Sky Highway. This is often called the recreation area for Vancouver.

Cities

• Squamish
• Whistler
• Pemberton

Understand

Many of the events for the 2010 winter Olympics will be in the Sea-to-Sky area.

Get in

Most travellers will come to this area through Vancouver. It is also possible to arrive from the North of Highway 99 from the Kamloops direction.

Get around

Most travellers will travel around by private vehicle. It should be noted that significant highway work is planned for the Sea-to-Sky highway almost continuously from now until the 2010 Olympics and therefore expect construction delays on this highway.

The Sea-to-sky highway is a mountain highway. In the winter it gets a significant amount of snow and ice. The road is quite curvy in sections and should be driven with caution. Most of the highway is a 2 lane road with occasional passing lanes. The construction project plans to increase it to a 4 lane highway for much of the route, and straighten out some of the more dangerous sections.

Translink provides transit from Vancouver to as far as Lions Bay. The trip from North Shore (Greater Vancouver) to Lions Bay is another fare zone, and therefore the trip from Vancouver will cost $4.50 during peak periods. After September 6, 2005, the fare zone boundary between Lions Bay and the North Shore will be eliminated, and the cash fare from Vancouver will drop to $3.25.

There is coach service provided from Vancouver to Pemberton.

In the past there was daily train service from Vancouver to Prince George that passed through all of the major towns of the sea to sky. However, this was cancelled by the government owned railway. There are proposals by private companies to revive passenger rail service on this route.

See

• Shannon Falls - This is a provincial park near Squamish on the highway. It is about a 10 minute walk from the parking lot to a viewpoint at the bottom of the falls.
• Brandywine Falls - This is a provincial park between Squamish and Whistler. It is about a 10 minute walk from the parking lot to a lookout above the spectacular falls.

Do

Mountain Climbing

• The Chief

Hiking/Backpacking

• The Stawamus Chief
• Elfin Lakes
• Garibaldi Lake
• Cougar Mountain

The best book for information about hiking in this area (and all of the Lower Mainland) is 103 Hikes of Southwestern British Columbia ISBN 1550547755

Sleep

There are a number of resort hotels in Whistler and a variety of other accommodations in the other cities. Between the cities there are a number of Provincial Parks with very good and quite popular campgrounds.

Camping

• Porteau Cove Provincial Park
• Alice Lake Provincial Park -- very popular during the summer, especially on weekends.

Get Out

Nearby to the Sea-to-Sky area is Sunshine Coast.

The Okanagan is also accessible by going through the Sea-to-Sky area, but the route is quite indirect.