Cypress Mountain Hollyburn Nordic Area — Attraction in West Vancouver

We hiked to the Hollyburn Peak via the Winter Access Trail. It was an approx 3.5 hr hike out and back.

The trail had a steep start. Then it was pretty flat in the middle with some minor up and down. The last 1/4 to the top was the most challenging section in terms of the steepness.

Remember to dress in layers. Could be cold when you are idling. Heat up quickly as you grind up.

Hard packed snow as long as you stayed on the trail. Snow spike was more than sufficient and was easier to navigate than snowshoes in my view. Bring hiking poles if you have. Was helpful to get up and down at the steepest section.

Trail was wide by large. Able to keep good distance with the fellow hikers.

When you approached the very steep section, you would see a snowman shortly while grinding up. From there, you were about 40 mins away to the top.

The top had 360 view. Gorgeous. Birds were curious and friendly. They flew close to you.

Coming down the very steep section was challenging but fun. We sat down to slide at some steep section. We were able to walk down too with the aid of the hiking poles.

The trail was clearly marked.

As far as parking condition goes, we arrived the parking at 8:30am. Good amount of parking spots available. Traffic to the mountain only started to slow down near the Hollyburn Nordic...

We went snowshoeing here for the first time. I personally find snowshoeing like like skiing. If you have your own equipment, then it's pretty cheap for just tickets. Once you add rentals it becomes cost prohibitive for families. Snowshoeing itself becomes a expensive walk in the park. That probably colors my review a bit, but I'll try to be objective. The rental process was pretty painless despite being busy. Equipping shoes was self explanatory, and they have trail maps you can take to guide you. I appreciated the layout of the trails with a Cafe Lodge in the middle. This makes it easy to plan when you're going to take a break, have some food and drink and carry on, or go home. The lodge has standard fare. Prices are what you might expect from "the only game in town" venue. They are licensed, with several signature brews to try(cans/bottles). The trails are well marked and variable terrain even at the green level. There were posted at intervals, nature information on what potentially could be observed in the area. Unfortunately, there were too many hikers about, and no wildlife to be found. Overall I found it good exercise, and an ok nature hike for where we walked. We didn't venture into the blue and black areas, so I can't say how...

Before renting cross country skies I asked the receptionist, if the classic ski trails are in a good condition and how many trails are open for classic ski. She replied that all trails are open for classic skies, except for the West lake. That was not true at all. Many trails did not have classic ski tracks at all and very few that did had it in awful condition. I was not able to use the skies and had to walk most of the time. If I knew the tracks are non-existing, I would better rent a pair of snowshoes. When I returned the skies to the rental, there was still 2h before the shuttle bus to Vancouver. There was no place to wait for it: nowhere to take cover, nowhere to sit. The Nordic cafe was closed and when I tried walking to the Lodge, I was told that I need to rent some equipment again (skies or snowshoes, otherwise it is not allowed). This is totally ridiculous, because in fact there is a hiking trail starting from the far end of the parching lot, but for some reasons the employees decided not to tell me about it. And here we have: (1) worst ski tracks ever (2) worst customer service in greater Vancouver area (3) bad quality of rental skis . So I will definitely not recommend this to any...