Visiting Shannon Falls on the Way to Whistler
Popular Choice for Picnics and Budget Sightseeing Near Vancouver, BC
Jun 23, 2009
At 335 metres (1,105 feet) above sea level, Shannon Falls towers majestically to the east above British Columbia’s renowned Sea To Sky Highway.
Shannon Falls is BC's third-highest waterfall and is located in Shannon Falls Provincial Park – forty-five minutes from downtown Vancouver and just five minutes from the city of Squamish.
The accessibility of this waterfall makes it a very popular tourist destination with an average of half a million visitors per year.
Shannon Falls Provincial Park
The park is free to use and open year-round. Once in the park, the falls are accessible via several short but wide trails that usher visitors from all points of entry to the main observation platform located near the base of Shannon Falls.
The actual falls are astonishingly picturesque. The lofty and smooth granite walls have been carved out for centuries by the cascading waters from nearby Mount Sky Pilot and Mount Habrich. Besides this remarkable waterfall, Shannon Falls Provincial Park draws many visitors for its expansive picnic areas and scenic creek-side hikes.
Depending on the time of year, Shannon Falls can take the form of a thunderous waterfall or a jagged wall of ice. But regardless of the season, the falls are always awe-inspiring for a day trip destination or for a scenic place to take a lunch break on a road trip north to Whistler, home of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
Whistler and Shannon Falls Tour Option
There are several commercial tour companies based in Vancouver that run year round “Whistler and Shannon Falls Tours”. If you can afford it, these tours offer a care-free way to experience both Whistler Village and Shannon Falls in a single day.
The itineraries of these bus tours vary slightly from company to company but all of them tend to take about ten hours with a stopover at Shannon Falls for lunch and then on to Whistler Village before returning to downtown Vancouver. It is also worth mentioning that many of these tour companies offer complimentary passenger pick up and drop-off from selected hotels around downtown Vancouver.
Further Information
- For those with more time and wanting more of a challenge out of their Shannon Falls experience, the falls are adjacent to Stawamus Chief Provincial Park, home of the Stawamus Chief Trail. This is a six-hour round-trip hike up to the panoramic summit of the Stawamus Chief and back down to Shannon Falls via a short trail that joins up with the Chief Trail at Oleson Creek.
- BC Parks information on Shannon Falls Provincial Park.
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