If you were going to spend a month in Squamish...

Which month would you pick?

Where would you tent camp? And would you need to reserve in advance?

Thank in advance!

August.
Camp in the Chief Campground — super fun vibes.
No reservations needed, but you’ll need to either sacrifice your firstborn or make a deal with the devil to get a spot. 

Ry C's recs are spot on imo. But seriously don't underestimate how difficult it is to get a camping spot! 

Ry C wrote:

August.
Camp in the Chief Campground — super fun vibes.
No reservations needed, but you’ll need to either sacrifice your firstborn or make a deal with the devil to get a spot. 

This is off by a mile. You must take the blood of your first born, soak your second born in it and then offer your second born as a sacrifice.
Pagans am I rite?

T Taylor wrote:

This is off by a mile. You must take the blood of your first born, soak your second born in it and then offer your second born as a sacrifice.
Pagans am I rite?

Woops, sorry haha.

I have no plans to make offspring so I’ve always resorted to deals with the devil. At this point, we’re on a first name basis, I’ll never climb 5.13, and my soul is permanently chained for eternal damnation, but I’ve always managed to snag a car spot in the campground. Worth it, I guess. 

Mark E Dixon wrote:

Which month would you pick?

Where would you tent camp? And would you need to reserve in advance?

Thank in advance!

Are you planning to climb routes, or boulder? Casual moderate mileage sort of trip, or trying hard?

For multipitch trad climbing and/or cragging mileage,  August. It'll be fairly warm and busy, but it is worth it for the basically guaranteed dry conditions. The warm summer days are also nice for a vacation vibe, swimming in lakes, etc.

For bouldering (and try-hard sport climbing also), September. Higher chance of getting rained on, but still not too bad and worth it for the cooler conditions. Plus you can always bail to Skaha or Leavenworth if you get rained out of Squamish.

Overall I think early to mid September is the best time to be there. Cooler than August, much less busy, easier to find camping, usually still dry. By late September the chance of rain increases.

Something like August 20 to September 20 would be my ideal month for Squamish. It's still warm and busy vacation vibes at the start of the trip, then by the end of the trip it's cooling off, you feel fall coming and the season closing out.

Side note: if you haven't been to Skaha yet it is really worth it, fantastic area. If you stay in Squamish through mid September, that is pretty ideal timing to then go spend late September in Skaha. Great sport climbing area, scenery, lakes, wineries. 

For camping, I won't disagree with the posters above the the Chief campground is the classic choice. It is the social hub of the traveling climber scene, and you can walk to much of the classic climbing. But it is non-reserved camping and hard to get a site, so that adds a lot of chaos and uncertainty to your trip planning and arrival.  

If you want a reserved-in-advance site so that your trip logistics are locked in ahead of time, consider the Mamquam River Campground.

Thanks all!

I was hoping there was a plan B, since both my first and second born sons are bigger and stronger than me, and I'm more likely the sacrifice than either of them!

Psyched already

I’ve never stayed in the Mamquam campground but I’ve heard it’s good. There’s another campground near Alice Lake that is reservable (Alice Lake Campground), it’s farther about 20mins from the Chief.

At the Chief campground, car camp sites are hard to get in the peak season (where you can park your car next to your tent) but more plentiful walk-in tent sites are actually not too difficult to get. Super short walk from the parking lot, gorgeous forest setting. Expect it to be full during the weekends but I’ve seen lots of empty tent sites over weekdays. Ask when people are leaving and if you can claim the site when they depart — I always joke that at the Chief, you don’t get a site, you inherit a site. Once you snag a site you can stay there for a full 14-days.

If you're there for a month. You could reserve at a reservation campground for a week to get to know the area and make arrival easy, then switch to the Chief.

I found it impossible to reserve at Alice lake. They open up spots each night at midnight for 4 months in advance and even with having everything filled out and clicking reserve right at midnight it always said all the sites were gone. There must be some campsite reservation software I’m not aware of or something 

IJMayer wrote:

I found it impossible to reserve at Alice lake. They open up spots each night at midnight for 4 months in advance and even with having everything filled out and clicking reserve right at midnight it always said all the sites were gone. There must be some campsite reservation software I’m not aware of or something 

It’s my opinion that they have software that excludes people that are not ordering from a Canadian IP address.

Chek campground if all else fails. There’s no water though so that sucks.