Stawamus Chief Provincial Park is a

provincial park Ischigualasto Provincial Park A provincial park (or territorial park) is a park administered by one of the provinces of a country, as opposed to a national park. They are similar to state parks in other countries. They are typically open to t ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, established in 1997. It encompasses both the eponymous

Stawamus Chief The Stawamus Chief, officially Stawamus Chief Mountain (often referred to as simply The Chief, or less commonly Squamish Chief), is a granitic dome located adjacent to the town of Squamish, British Columbia, Canada. It towers over above the wa ...

and the

Slhanay Slhanay, formerly known as The Squaw is a large dome of granitic rock located adjacent to the town of Squamish, British Columbia. Although the mountain, known as ''Slhanay'' in the language of the Skwxwu7mesh people is indeed an impressive geo ...

granitic A granitoid is a generic term for a diverse category of coarse-grained igneous rocks that consist predominantly of quartz, plagioclase, and alkali feldspar. Granitoids range from plagioclase-rich tonalites to alkali-rich syenites and from quartz- ...

domes and the surrounding forest. Activities in the park include hiking, rock climbing, and camping. There are views from the park across Howe Sound and of Mount Garibaldi to the north. In 2009, the park received upgrades as part of the Sea to Sky Highway Improvement Project, which gave it a new signature pedestrian bridge with an unusual form that uses two blue, splayed arches and a curved concrete deck. It is located to the south of the town of Squamish, on the Sea to Sky Highway at the top NE corner of

Howe Sound Howe Sound (french: Baie (de /d')Howe, squ, Átl'ka7tsem, Nexwnéwu7ts, Txwnéwu7ts) is a roughly triangular sound, that joins a network of fjords situated immediately northwest of Vancouver, British Columbia. It was designated as a UNESCO Biosp ...

. In 2012, the B.C. government removed 2.36 hectares of land from Stawamus Chief Provincial Park through legislation, a move that garnered much public debate. This was done to enable construction of the privately operated Sea to Sky Gondola, which opened for business in 2014. The government re-designated the 20-metre-wide gondola corridor the Stawamus Chief Protected Area. The gondola had increased visitation to the park until its line was cut twice, in 2019 and 2020. A previous proposal to put a gondola on the Stawamus Chief itself was unsuccessful.

References

External links

“Stawamus Chief Provincial Park”
BC Parks. Provincial parks of British Columbia Sea-to-Sky Corridor Protected areas established in 1997 1997 establishments in British Columbia {{BritishColumbia-park-stub