
Winter activities – Dog Mountain Trail in snowshoes
I’ve already written once about hiking along the Dog Mountain trail in summer (well… autumn!) But it turns out Dog mountain is even better in the snow! The snow evens out the trail, so once you have snowshoes, this is an easy, fun hike that will give you some stunning views on a good day.
We managed the whole Dog Mountain trail in less than 2 hours. So, as we had time we also explored some of the other pretty snowshoe trails on Mount Seymour.
Dog Mountain Trail Map
Dog Mountain – the basics:
Distance: 4.5 km
Elevation gain: Minimal (there are a couple of steep sections, but you really don’t go up much!)
Highest point: 1054 m
Time: About 45 minutes each way
What to bring: You need waterproof walking boots to wear under your snowshoes. I like to wear ski-pants (in case there are good moments to slide on my bottom.) It’s always a good idea to bring some snacks (apple or chocolate, or whatever you fancy) to enjoy at the viewpoint. Read through the 10 essentials.
Can you do it? This is an easy trail that finishes with a really gorgeous view, so YES!
How to get to Dog Mountain:
The Dog Mountain trail is one of the many snowshoeing possibilities on Mount Seymour. If you have a car it’s easy to get up here, just drive up and park in the snowshoeing area (a little below the car park for skiers.) We took the shuttle bus up. It costs $15. You don’t pay on the way up, so just buy a ticket at the top to make it back into Vancouver.
How to find the Dog Mountain Trailhead:
The start of the walk is at the bottom of Mount Seymour’s main ski slope to the left (if you are facing North towards Mount Seymour.) Take the path towards first pump peak on the Mount Seymour trail and you’ll see a second trail heading left into the trees. When we were there, there was an obvious sign pointing towards Dog Mountain.
Snowshoeing tips:
Dog Mountain would be a pretty good place even for your first attempt at snowshoeing.
You can hire snowshoes from a hut on the edge of the car park. The cost is $27, but that also includes your pass into the Mount Seymour snowshoe area. Unlike snowshoeing on Cypress Mountain, they don’t mind if you want to go outside the park boundries to wander up Dog Mountain or to First Pump Peak on Mount Seymour. Once you’ve hired snowshoes, just strap them on over your walking boots and get going.
If you hire snowshoes in Vancouver (from MEC or Sports Junkies) it is at least $10 cheaper than hiring them up in the Mountains.
The Dog Mountain Trail
Once you find the path it is really easy to follow, with plenty of other walkers. This isn’t a trail where you need to be worried about being stranded in the wilderness on your own!! That actually makes it quite fun. You will definitely meet other people, an plenty of dogs along the route. We saw people of all ages from grannies to toddlers and young-ish children.
We arrived in the morning after a big snowfall so the trees were completely covered in snow. It was quite sunny, so the snow kept falling from the treetops in large clumps. Marc was hit in the head with a falling block of ice at one point, but mostly the snow fell in mini snowstorms under the trees.
First Lake
After about a kilometer you get to First Lake. Or, at least, you would get to First Lake in the summertime! In winter you arrive at a large open field covered in fluffy snow! We saw quite a few people wandering out to make snow angels in the unspoiled snow powder in the middle of the lake. I wouldn’t want to try that in the spring time. But it looked fun with this much snow and ice!
You can tell when you are getting close to the viewpoint as more sun starts to stream through the trees ahead of you. Soon after that, you will be treated to these gorgeous views from Dog Mountain’s summit. It is a fantastic place to relax for a while and people watch. There weren’t quite as many people as our summer walk, but there must have been over 20 people enjoying this view with us.
There is also a friendly raven who always seems to be here watching the views and hoping for handouts.
The view in the other direction, towards the North Shore Mountains is even better! The only problem is those clouds were hiding the shapes of the surrounding mountains so it is hard to tell which is which! We should have had a brilliant view of the Needles, Coliseum Mountain and Cathedral Mountain. Those pretty, fluffy clouds made it hard to work out which is which though!
You can sort of see, as soon as we arrived more grey clouds came in. The cold had killed off my camera battery, so all of these photos are with the camera on my phone. I did try to take some photos in the direction of the moody grey clouds, but none of them came out well, so you’ll just have to imagine those epic, moody views!
Dinky Peak
On our return journey we decided to do some extra walking, so once we made it back to First lake, we took a path to the left towards Dinky Peak. For some reason, the path to Dinky Peak was completely deserted. Most people stay on the Dog Mountain trail, so even this slight detour was completely empty. It was actually pretty romantic to explore this quiet trail.
Snow-laden trees
One thing I really love about snowshoeing is being close enough to get a good look at all the snow-covered trees. We noticed that lots of the smaller trees have so much snow that they start to curl over under all the extra weight. Those curled trees end up having a large surface area for snow to fall on, so they get more and more covered until they resemble a snow-bump more than a tree! We found one where the top of the tree was poking out, so we made it into a snow-blob man. He’s pretty cute!
Mount Seymour Snowshoe Trails
We had decided to head down from the mountain on the shuttle bus at 1:15pm. But as the Dog Mountain trail was quite small (even with a Dinky Peak detour), we still had an hour to spare. So, we decided to explore the snowshoe trails located within the Mount Seymour resort. The start of these trails are located between the rookie run and the mystery peak express gondola.
The first part of the trail goes down along the rookie run where we first learned to ski back in December. It was a bit of a surprise to see the place where we first learnt to ski! I mean, since our first weekend on Mount Seymour, all of my ski-practice has been on Cypress Mountain or in Whistler. I remember Mount Seymour as being slightly terrifying and dotted with trees that acted as some sort of Josy-magnet! This time I could see the ski run with new eyes. It looked pretty easy! Look at that photo to the left. It hardly looks like a hill at all! I guess this means I must have improved at skiing, even if I still feel like a total novice. That was a pleasant surprise!
Time for contemplation
If you fancy some really quiet snowshoeing, it turns out that the trails within the boundaries of Seymour Mountain’s resort are perfect. We hardly saw anyone else as we walked through the well maintained trails. I guess lots of people have their own snowshoes, so prefer to walk along the free trail on Dog Mountain. If you’re hiring snowshoes on Mount Seymour, you’ve paid for the pass anyway, so it really is worth exploring their trails!
When we learnt to ski on Seymour Mountain, we didn’t actually see any scenery at all, so I’d like to finish with a view of the slopes. This was our view just before we hopped onto the shuttle bus. I’d quite like to come back and ski here on a clear day as it did look pretty fun!
I really love Marc, but when I got home I found my snow selfie with him in the background. How do I fancy someone that has this good a selfie-face!?
Other snowshoeing adventures near Vancouver:
If you liked the sound of this Dog Mountain trail mini snowshoe adventure, then you might like reading about some others:
- Brandywine falls – a frozen waterfall near Whistler
- Grouse Mountain Light walk – the easiest trail on Grouse
- Snowshoe Grind on Grouse Mountain – A slightly harder walk with with some epic mountain views
- Our New Year adventure on Hollyburn Mountain (where we broke ourselves sliding down on our bums!)
Other snow-y walks near Vancouver
- Quarry Rock Hike – a gooorgeous (and easy) hike in Deep Cove. You finish this walk with honey doughnuts.
- Whyte Lake Trail – a pretty walk in West Vancouver
- Mount Seymour’s First Peak – My first ever mountain hike in Vancouver was in the snow!
- Last (but not least) you can see Monty the cat’s reaction to Canadian snow.
Blogging friends:
If you are reading this and you like my posts, please consider voting for me! I have been nominated for the “Best Pal” category of the annual Bloggers bash. You can click here to vote (please do!!) If you’re not sure who to else vote for, I have a whole post listing other lovely bloggers too!
36 thoughts on “Winter activities – Dog Mountain Trail in snowshoes”
Great car park views are excellent for lazy days! But this looks like a really fun trail 😀
Lazy, but super fun.
I feel weird taking photos of other people’s pets, but there were some really cute dogs on this trail too. That made it even better!
That looks a beautiful walk. Thanks for sharing. I’ve cast my vote for you. Good luck.
Oooh Thank you so much George!! 😀
Haha.. great selfie, and congrats on the award too. X
Hehehe It’s a good un isn’t it!? Thanks Lorelle! I don’t really have a chance with the award as my blog is teeny…but my mum e-mailed everyone she knows to ask them to vote for me…so you never know! 😉
That’s right Josy, you never know!. It’s such an accomplishment to be nominated so good luck. I am crossing my fingers and toes for you. Xx
Thank you soooo much!!
So, how does snowshoeing compare to hiking? Would you say you like it as much? I know it’s essentially both walking on stuff, but since I haven’t yet snowshoed I’m curious. Also, I really want to trek out there now in my newly fallen 12 inches of snow!
It’s really similar to hiking. The difference is you have to be much more careful about steep inclines (as snow shoes are not very good for descending.) So flat-ish walks are best.
Other than that, your gait is slightly wider to make room for the shoes. But you don’t even notice that after a few minutes.
I love both, but in different ways.
BUAHAHAHAHAHA! That Marc photobomb is HILARIOUS!! I’m really hoping to take a trip up to the Seattle area perhaps in the fall! We totally need to meet up!
YES!! We still didn’t make it to Seattle (I was sort of hoping I can time a visit when you’re there too!!) Squeeee!!
Yes!! I really hope we can make that work!!
Gee Josy you do go to some fantastic places.
I’m the ultimate tourist in our own backyard!! It helps that Vancouver has so many good places to see…but I think everywhere in the world has fun things to explore. I feel the same about your posts in Belgium. 🙂
I love “Snow-blob man.” As expected, great photos. It sure is gorgeous there. Can people cross-country ski here as well? It might be too flat for that, but the trails looks nicely packed.
I hope Marc’s head is okay. Getting hit by a blob of falling ice doesn’t sound like fun.
Patricia Rickrode
w/a Jansen Schmidt
He’s okay! I don’t think he even remembers it happened!!
You can cross country ski, near here, but not on the trail to Dog Mountain (I think there are too many hikers in the way!!)
Great day for Dog Mtn – love all the fresh snow! I’ve never actually explored the paid Mt Seymour trails in winter – it’s a nice area to explore in summer so I expect it would be lovely in winter.
I know what you mean about being a tree magnet: I’ve taken off my cross-country skis before and walked down a hill because of a well-placed tree with my name on it…!
Lol I am glad I am not the only one! In our first lesson the instructor told me to look where I wanted to ski to. I’d look at trees thinking “I should avoid that” and then I’d ski right into them!!
This looks stunning! I love the selfie shot!
Hehehe! That one really made me smile too! I didn’t notice his crazy face when I took it. He did a similarly sexy(not) face yesterday on our hike too.
So, so stunning! The views are just amazing. Like nothing yo would get in this country. You’re having such a lovely adventure over in Canada.
I do have some gorgeous photos in the snow in the Peak district, but those mountains are SUCH a different shape, with such different trees. You’re right, there is nothing quite like the BC scenery in the UK. I love both!!
Beautiful. I’m missing the snow already!
Once again I am just blown away by your photos, just amazing!
You are sooo sweet! Thank you!
This just looks beautiful Josy!
Thanks Ritu! It was a really pretty day.
What an exciting adventure. Although, seeing all of that snow makes me cringe a little bit after we had two feet of snow dumped on us just two weeks ago. At least it’s almost all melted now. 🙂 I haven’t been snowshoeing in years now, but I really do enjoy it. One of my favorite things to do is to explore rivers. I’ve even climbed up small waterfalls with my snowshoes one (not one of my best ideas). 😉 Anyway, beautiful post, Josy, and I’m crossing my fingers and toes for your award – you deserve it, my friend. xx
You climbed up a waterfall in snowshoes!? Wow! That sounds like a brave idea! How big was it? How did you get down again? You are so adventurous in snow shoes! We just stayed near the paths!!
It looks like one that even I could do…it looks amazing.
You could totally do it! There were some young children trying it too, so you might be able to bring Gigi!
I am new to Vancouver and saw that we need snow tires to drive to Dog Mountain. I saw that you mentioned a shuttle for $15. Are we able to drive to the parking lot area without winter tires? Or do we need them to get that far too?? Wanting to go, but not sure about the tire dilemma!
Thanks!
Hi Sarah,
Yeah, I think you do need snow tires to drive up Mount Seymour. The parking for Dog Mountain is right at the top by the ski lifts so it will be icy up there. I just checked the shuttle bus website and it doesn’t seem to be working – but that is the main way to get up there if you don’t have snow tires. (When we took the shuttle, it stopped at Rupert Skytrain Station as well
as Parkgate Community Centre.)