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Looking out through cedar branches from a wooden lookout over Buntzen Lake on an overcast day

Buntzen Lake: The Anmore Loop That Needs a Parking Pass in Summer

The closest proper lake loop to Vancouver that is not a mountain, and the one that will ruin your morning if you drive to Anmore in July without a QR code. Book the pass the day before. Then it is an honest forest walk with swimming if you want it.

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Quick facts

Distance
10 km
Elevation gain
110 m
Highest point
200 m
Difficulty
Moderate
Time needed
3-5 hours
Route type
Loop
Season
Year-round. Gates and closing times shift with daylight. The parking reservation system runs 14 May to 7 September 2026. Outside that window the lot is first-come.
Drive from Vancouver
50 min
Transit accessible
Yes
Dog friendly
Yes
Pass or permit
Reservation requiredFrom 14 May to 7 September 2026 every vehicle needs a free parking reservation from BC Hydro, booked from 7am the day before at bchydro.com/buntzen or in the Yodel app. Morning, afternoon, or full-day. A QR code is scanned at the gate. No pass, no entry, no first-come leftover stalls. Walkers, cyclists and transit users do not need a reservation. Repeat no-shows get accounts suspended.
Last hiked
Traditional territory
səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) territory, with overlapping Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) territory, and kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem) connections to the Coquitlam and Buntzen watersheds
On this page3 sections

Buntzen Lake is a BC Hydro reservoir in Anmore with a beach, a picnic ground, a dog area, and a forest loop around the water. It is also the Lower Mainland lake that now requires a free parking reservation for five months of the year, and that fact should be the first sentence of every guide, not a footnote.

From 14 May to 7 September 2026, you book a pass from 7am the day before. You bring the QR code. You get scanned at the gate. If you do not, you do not go in. There is no first-come remainder. Walk, bike, or take the 182 if the passes are gone.

The loop

BC Hydro calls the loop 8 km and 100 m of gain. Other people measure closer to 10 km. Budget three to five hours depending on swimming and how long you stand on the north suspension bridge. Start at South Beach, follow the east side toward North Beach, cross the suspension bridge, come down the west side, and finish across the floating bridge.

Picnic tables under evergreen canopy at Buntzen Lake South Beach
South Beach picnic ground. Most people who book a pass never leave this end of the lake, and on a hot Saturday that is visible.

The west side has the loose rock. The east side has the lookouts. North Beach is quieter than South Beach, which is the entire personality of the place on a hot Saturday.

Wooden lakeside lookout on the Buntzen Lake trail, with a dirt path, ferns, and the reservoir visible through the trees
One of the built lookouts on the South Beach side. The lake is the subject. The blue bin is not.
Looking out over Buntzen Lake from a railed platform, forested far shore under a white overcast sky
The reservoir from the railing. This is a working hydro lake, which is why the water level moves and why the gate exists.
Forest trail at Buntzen Lake with hanging spring branches over a dirt path
The loop itself, once you leave the beach. Roots, bridges, a bit of loose rock on the west side.

Diez Vistas is the other trail from the same lot, and it is not this page. It is a ridge with views of Indian Arm, and it is longer and steeper. If you booked a morning-only pass, do not start Diez Vistas.

Swimming and the gate

People come here to swim. The water is a reservoir. Levels move. Stay out of closed areas and out of the water when BC Hydro says so. Gates close on a published timetable that gets earlier as the year gets darker. Read it the night you book. Anmore has no public overflow parking if you miss last entry, and BC Hydro is not shy about that.

I was here on 30 April 2023, before the summer reservation window, overcast, mostly at the South Beach lookouts. The photographs on this page are that visit. The pass system is the 2026 operating reality on top of it.

Transit is the real overflow

The 182 to Anmore Grocery plus a half-hour walk sounds like a fussy instruction until you have watched the Yodel app at 7:05am on a Saturday in July. Pedestrians do not need a pass. That is the design. Use it.

Hiked it myself

Overcast, South Beach lookouts, picnic ground quiet, forest trail wet in the usual places. No reservation needed yet. The lake was the point.

Reported by Parveen Singh

Trail notes from the field

One email a month: what is melting out, what is snowed in, and where the light is good right now. Written after the hike, not before it.

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Shooting this trail

Photography notes

Best light
Overcast for the forest and the lookouts. The lake sits in a north-south trough, so a clear midday puts glare on the water and black holes under the cedar. A grey Anmore day is the photograph. Evening side light on the far shore works if you booked an afternoon pass and you are not rushing the gate.
Best season
May before the reservation crush, and late September after it. July is a swimming day, not a photography day, unless you like people in every frame.
Compositions
  • From a railed lookout at 35mm, cedar framing the water, far shore under cloud. Get the railing out of the bottom if you can do it without climbing it.
  • The suspension bridge at the north end at 24-35mm with the lake behind. That is the built subject that is not a picnic table.
  • South Beach as a wide environmental, 24mm, on a quiet weekday. On a weekend it is a crowd picture whether you want one or not.
Gear
A polariser earns its keep on the water and on wet cedar. You do not need a heavy kit for this loop. You do need the pass screenshot and a sense of the closing time, because a full-day pass that expires while you are still on the west side is how people get towed.