Hey guys, Karl here from Outdoor Vancouver and today we're hiking up to Rainbow Lake in Whistler.
I haven't been up to Rainbow Lake before but after having recently hiked up to Iceberg Lake nearby,
I was really curious to come check out Rainbow Lake. The only problem is a bunch of wildfire
smoke has blown in in the last couple days from our neighbors to the south in Washington so I'm
expecting it to be a little bit hazy up there. We might not get the best views of Black Tusk across
the valley and whatnot, but we'll go hike up to the lake and see what it looks like.
Rainbow Lake is a fairly popular hike it is about 16 kilometers
return. It can be completed on average in about six hours.
And it takes you up to a beautiful alpine lake in a meadow which sits below Rainbow Mountain.
To get to Rainbow Lake you take the Rainbow Lake trail which follows alongside 21 Mile
Creek up into the alpine the hike up to the lake is, for the most part, just straight up.
The trail is actually, for the most part, in the Whistler watershed area
so you're not allowed to bring dogs. There's no swimming in the lake, and there's no camping
either. So those are just some things to be aware of before you head out on this hike.
As you start out on the trail you have a chance to take a quick detour to Rainbow Falls which is a
nice waterfall along the lower portion of 21 Mile Creek. We have a separate guide on our website,
I'll link to that below if you want to check out a loop you can do around Rainbow Falls, which is
much easier and a quicker outing than what we're doing today hiking all the way up to the lake.
This is a hike you do also want to be extra bear aware on as well. There's the odd grizzly sighting
up in this area. And because this is in the Whistler watershed there are rangers on duty. So
about two kilometers into the hike, when you reach the actual trailhead for the Rainbow Lake Trail,
there is a sign board with an update from the rangers with any current trail conditions and
bear sightings so you can check that out and just be aware of any recent bear activity in the area.
Unfortunately once we got up to the top, the views off in the distance of Garibaldi were a
bit obscured by the wildfire smoke. But the lake itself was incredible.
And best of all it finally happened. I saw someone wearing an Outdoor Vancouver
t-shirt while out on a hike. So shout out to Martin it was great to meet you and thanks for
grabbing a shirt. Might as well insert a shameless plug here. If you like our channel and the website
and want to support us to keep creating new hiking guides and content, the easiest way to
do that is to grab something from our web store. We have hoodies, t-shirts, neck gators, hoodies,
long sleeve shirts, everything you could want. The proceeds go to help support the website
and also partial proceeds go to help the Take a Hike Youth at Risk Foundation. So you can grab
some cool gear and help support us at the same time. I'll put a link to our web shop down below.
If you want to learn more about the Rainbow Lake hike, as always we'll put a link in the
video description down below to the full guide on our website which has photos, step-by-step
route description, GPS tracks, directions to the trailhead, and everything you need
to do this hike successfully and safely.
Make sure you subscribe so you can be notified about our latest trail videos.
Thanks for watching and we'll see you next time!