Cathedral Provincial Park – hiking loops
Distance

DISTANCE

8km - 16km
GPS

GPS DOWNLOADS

Distance

MAP

About the Journey

The extraordinary Cathedral Provincial Park owes its name to sensational mountain peaks that reach over 2600m/8,500 ft around a bowl in the Cascade Mountains just north of the U.S.A. border.

The majority of people visit the park by either camping or booking a room at the Cathedral Lakes Provincial Lodge.  In either case, the best way to access the area is by booking a shuttle with the lodge.

Suggested time: 2 half days and 2 full days (3 nights) allowing to arrive on the 10:00 a.m. shuttle and leaving on the 3:00 p.m. shuttle.

The general location of the park is 22 km out of Keremeos on the south side of the Similkameen River.  Here it is as described in Wikipedia:
Cathedral Provincial Park and Protected Area, usually known as Cathedral Provincial Park and also as Cathedral Park, is a provincial park in British ColumbiaCanada. It is located east of E.C. Manning Provincial Park, south of BC Highway 3, and southeast of the town of Princeton and southwest of Keremeos. Its southern boundary is the border with the United States. Much of the park is the basin of the Ashnola River.

Suggested Hiking Itinerary

Diamond Loop (including Scout Lake) – half day (following the 10:00 a.m. shuttle  – 8.8 km counter clockwise

Rim Trail Loop via Diamond Trail Loop junction, to Red Mt, Quiniscoe Mt, Pyramid Mt., Devils Wood Pile, Smokey the Bear/Giant Cleft, Lady Slipper Lake and back to Lodge- Full day about 7.5 to 8.5 hrs (counter clockwise) – 16 km

Goat Lake via Box Car Mt. and Lakeview Mtn. Loop – Full Day – approx. 14 km (optional – if staying for 2 nights only you may wish to forego this hike.

Lake of the Woods, Pyramid Lake, Glacier Lake and Quiniscoe Lake (including falls) Loops – half day, 8-km – clockwise – take the 3:00 p.m. shuttle out

The complete Centennial Trail through the Park is much longer as is the trail taking in Haystack Mt. These are  multi-day back packing hikes.




Staging Areas:

GPS INFORMATION:

  • KML/KMZ files can be opened in Google Earth, and many smartphone apps.
  • GPX files can be opened by most GPS software apps when KMZ cannot. Note, GPX files do not contain custom colours and icons that we use on our maps; all tracks and icons will appear the same colours and styles. We recommend using KMZ instead when possible.
  • GPX-Garmin are GPX files that we have optimized for older Garmin units that only display tracks that contain 500 points or less (such as Garmin eTrex units).

Visit our GPS & Navigation page for instructions of how to use your smartphone as a GPS device (even when outside of data coverage) or how to import data to your Garmin unit.


GPS DOWNLOAD (KML FILE)
GPS DOWNLOAD (KMZ FILE)
GPS DOWNLOAD (GPX FILE)
DOWNLOAD INFORMATION SHEET

Staging Areas:

Washrooms:

Route Highlights:

Lodge and Ranger Station – 2060m/6760 ft Highest peak on these hikes – 2600m/8500 ft. Change in elevation from lowest to highest is 540m/1800 ft. Photo Album


DOWNLOAD INFORMATION SHEET

Shopping:

Accomodations:

Transportation:

Directions: