Quarry Rock, Deep Cove: The Winter Hike That Never Has Snow On It
The default answer when the alpine is a whiteout - 90 minutes, no snow, no gear, a real view over Indian Arm, and the only North Shore viewpoint you can genuinely reach on a bus.
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Quick facts
- Distance
- 3.8 km
- Elevation gain
- 100 m
- Highest point
- 123 m
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time needed
- 1.5-2 hours
- Route type
- Out and back
- Season
- Year-round. At barely 120 m of elevation it stays snow-free through virtually every Lower Mainland winter, though it ices up on the rock steps after a hard freeze.
- Drive from Vancouver
- 30 min
- Transit accessible
- Yes
- Dog friendly
- Yes
- Pass or permit
- No pass requiredNo pass, permit or fee for the trail itself. The cost of this hike is entirely a parking problem.
- Last hiked
- Traditional territory
- səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) territory, with overlapping Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish) territory
On this page3 sections
Every winter there is a weekend where the forecast is 900 metres of freezing level, the alpine is socked in, and everyone I know asks the same question. Quarry Rock is the answer. It tops out at 123 metres, which means it has never once had meaningful snow on it in the years I have been going, and it delivers an actual view over Indian Arm for ninety minutes of walking.
It is also, by some distance, the most over-loved trail on the North Shore. Understanding that is most of the planning.
The route
The trailhead is on Panorama Drive, a few hundred metres past Panorama Park, and it is easy to walk straight past: a Baden-Powell Trail sign and a wooden staircase set beside what looks like somebody's driveway. It is a public trail; the awkwardness of the entrance is just how Deep Cove is laid out.
From there it is 1.9 kilometres of rolling forest trail with a handful of small creek crossings on wooden bridges. The trail loses elevation before it gains it, which is why 100 metres of gain over such a short distance still gets people breathing. There are stairs - a lot of stairs - and roots, and after rain the lower sections turn to mud with a very particular North Shore consistency that will take a boot off.
The last section climbs, then breaks right onto the outcrop. Quarry Rock is a broad granite shelf looking north up Indian Arm with steep forest falling away below it. It is unfenced and the drop is real, which is worth saying plainly because it is a family trail and the edge does not announce itself.
Turn around and go back the way you came. Reward yourself in the village; that is the actual local tradition and the queue at the doughnut shop is part of the hike.
The parking situation, honestly
I am going to be careful here, because the specifics change and hiking sites are notoriously stale on this exact point.
What is stable: the lot at the end of Panorama Drive is small, on the order of thirty spaces, and on a sunny weekend it is gone by nine in the morning. The residential streets around the cove are permit-controlled. The District of North Vancouver has an active parking-management programme for Deep Cove that includes seasonal paid parking, residential permit zones and a bus permit scheme for coaches.
What I could not confirm at the time of writing: the current rates, the exact permit-zone boundaries, and the enforcement hours. Check the District of North Vancouver's Deep Cove parking pages before you drive. Do not park on a residential street and hope.
Which is a long way of arriving at the real recommendation: take the bus. The 212 runs from Phibbs Exchange into Deep Cove, and from downtown you chain SeaBus to Lonsdale Quay, the 239 to Phibbs, then the 212. About an hour, no circling, no ticket. Quarry Rock is the one North Shore viewpoint where transit is not a compromise, and on a July Saturday it is genuinely the faster option.
Winter and shoulder-season notes
Snow is essentially never the issue. Ice can be: after a hard freeze the rock steps and the exposed granite near the top get slick, and microspikes are not a ridiculous thing to have in a pack in January. Rain is the more common condition and the trail handles it badly in the low sections - expect mud, not puddles.
Darkness comes early and comes fast under that canopy. The forest here is dense enough that it is functionally night on the trail while there is still light on the water. If you are going up for late light, carry a headlamp; this is the trail where people most often assume they will not need one.
One note on drones: unlike Cypress, Mount Seymour and Garibaldi, this is not a BC provincial park, so the blanket BC Parks prohibition does not apply. It is District of North Vancouver parkland, and I have not been able to confirm what the District's bylaws say about flying here. Given how crowded the viewpoint is, assume no and check with the District if it matters to you.
Dogs are common on this trail. Sources disagree on whether off-leash is permitted, and given the crowding and an unfenced viewpoint with a long drop, leashed is the answer regardless of what the bylaw technically allows. Dogs have got themselves stuck on the rocks below the outcrop before.
One last thing. This trail sits on səlilwətaɬ - Tsleil-Waututh - territory, the People of the Inlet, whose community is immediately across the water from the viewpoint you are standing on. Indian Arm is not scenery to them. It is worth knowing that while you are up there.
Shooting this trail
Photography notes
- Best light
- Morning, and this catches people out. Quarry Rock looks roughly north-north-east up Indian Arm, so it is not a sunset viewpoint no matter what the geography of the North Shore leads you to assume - at sunset you are shooting into shadow with a bright sky behind the ridge. Early morning puts low side-light across the water and rims the forested slopes on the east side of the arm. In winter the sun is far enough south that the arm stays in soft shade most of the day, which is better for the photograph than it sounds.
- Best season
- November through March, for the low cloud and the absence of the crowd. October for colour on the deciduous understory on the lower trail.
- Compositions
- Low cloud in the arm at 50-85mm. This is the reason to hike Quarry Rock in bad weather: when the ceiling drops to about 200 m, the ridges on either side of Indian Arm become receding layers and the whole scene turns into a tonal study. Bright sunny days here produce a flat, cluttered, badly-lit photograph and everyone takes it anyway.
- The rock itself as foreground at 24mm from slightly back and above - there is a small rise behind the main outcrop that separates the granite from the water and stops the composition collapsing into a person standing on a rock.
- The bridge crossings on the lower trail, 35mm, after rain. The creek gullies hold moss and filtered light and are a genuinely better subject than the viewpoint, which is why almost nobody photographs them.
- Deep Cove itself from the trail's first opening, at 70mm, at first light with boats still on their moorings and mist on the water.
- Gear
- You do not need a tripod for this trail and carrying one signals to everyone at the viewpoint that you intend to occupy it, which on a busy day is a social problem. A single mid-zoom does everything here. If you do come for blue hour, bring a headlamp - the descent is rooty and the forest is dark twenty minutes before the sky is.
From the trail
