If you fancy an extra mini adventure beyond Kwai Lake Campground in Strathcona Provincial Park, keep walking to Cruickshank Canyon Lookout. The trail is easy to follow and only takes an hour. There are several beautiful alpine lakes along the way, so if you are camping at Kwai Lake, you could come this way for a swim. The viewpoint at the end of the hike is at the top of Cruickshank Canyon, so you can look down at the vertical drop and over to the surrounding mountains to the south of Vancouver Island. We didn’t see any other hikers on the way to the viewpoint – it’s mad that you can have this kind of fabulous scenery to yourself!

Strathcona Provincial Park is on Vancouver Island, the 460km long island just off the coast of mainland Canada.

Kwai Lake to Cruickshank Canyon Lookout Map

The map below is just the walk from Kwai Lake to the canyon. You can see the full day hike on strava here, or see my previous post about the rest of the Forbidden Plateau Loop here.

Kwai Lake to Cruickshank Canyon Lookout

Distance: 4.7 km (23 km if you do this as a day hike)
Cumulative Elevation gain: 160m (575m as a day hike)
Highest Point: 1203m, just after Kwai Lake
Time: 1 hour (We recorded 5.5 hours total moving time for the whole day hike)
What to bring: The 10 Essentials
Facilities: There is a loo at the Kwai Lake Campground
Dogs: Great for dogs, but you should keep them on a lead
How hard is it? Easy from Kwai Lake. Intermediate as a day hike (because it’s a long day)
Extra notes: We went on a lovely warm day after a drought, but I think this area would be super soggy and muddy in normal conditions.

Cruickshank Canyon – Getting started

The trail I’m describing starts from Kwai Lake Campground, which is 7km-ish from Paradise meadows. You can see the first part of the trail on my previous post here. From the campground, you need to drop down into the lake-filled forbidden plateau and walk past Mariwood Lake and Lake Beautiful to reach the canyon.

Kwai Lake Campground

Kwai Lake Campground is simply lovely! There are 15 campsites, southeast side of the lake. Some of them (like the one  above) look down on the lake. While others back onto the cliffs above the rest of forbidden plateau for far-off mountain views.

Kwai Lake Campground Facilities

Each campsite has plenty of space for a tent, some have wooden tent pads. Many had little benches made from planks and rocks. It’s not fancy, but the views are fabulous.

There is a really cool loo (it has a conveyor belt for a flush.) as well as lockers to store your food/pots/anything bears might want to sniff out.

Once you are ready to hike, take the trail at the south side of Kwai Lake.

Walk about 200m down the plateau trail and then take a left turn.

Mariwood Lake

The first lake is really gorgeous. It looks like it’d be really pleasant to swim in the summertime.

After Mariwood Lake you climb down a further 30m to the lower area of the Forbidden Plateau by Beautiful Lake.

Ad

Looking for the best online services?

Explore top-rated platforms and secure your discount before it expires.

Beautiful Lake

The main part of Beautiful Lake is pretty big and there is a small waterfall that drips into the main lake. Other than that, the plateau is full of gem-like ponds.

I love the areas where the forest leaves shadows on the ponds, making it look stripy.

There is a gentle climb as you walk from the lakes up to the canyon. This part of the trail looked like it is normally marshy with larger ponds, but it was all dried up when we visited. You can see the yellow grasses where normally there is water.

Cruickshank Canyon Lookout

Hike down to Cruickshank Canyon. The viewpoint is way more impressive than I expected. The cliffs drops down just over 320m (so over 1000ft.)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This is the view southeast. It is such a lovely spot to relax in the sunshine.

This is the other direction, the end of the canyon. There are quite a few patches of clearcut but apart from that, we loved the views.

Heading back

Return the way you came, back past all the lakes and ponds to Kwai Lake.

To get back to the main trailhead at Paradise Meadows, leave Kwai Lake and head uphill towards the ranger cabin in Murray Meadows, then back past Lake Helen Mackenzie.

In autumn Strathcona Provincial Park is just lovely. The trees are evergreen, but there are plenty of changing colours from the golden grasses and bright red berry bushes.

If you are staying at Kwai Lake then Cruickshank Canyon Lookout is an easy, short walk from the campground. Or, if you don’t want to camp, you can still reach it as a long-ish day hike. It seems like this part of Strathcona Provincial Park has a bunch of options for amazing trails. Do you like the idea of hiking or camping near Kwai Lake?