When to visit?

[Mel103]

I'm hoping to come over to Squamish from the UK for a two week trip, just wondering if anyone can recommend the best time to come from a rock climbing point of view,

Thanks

(apologies if this gets asked a lot!)

[J Mace]

last two weeks of July and first two weeks of August

are THE best times to avoid prolonged rain and if it gets hot there are plenty of shady routes around

have fun and work on your endurance..I heard the gyms in your neck of the woods are like 4 bolts long

[Mel103]

Thanks for that, is mid June any good?
It sounds like the weather can be as predictable as over here

My endurance isn't too bad but my jamming skills are seriously lacking, got a spanking in Yosemite last year! We just don't have anything that compares

[Brendan]

Mid June should be fine.

The temps will be more agreeable in early June, getting a bit unbearable in July/Aug.

[Dru]

mid-June is notorious for rainy periods of a week or so, but you can always visit Skaha.

[dakine]

Typically the last two weeks of May are nice (can be hot 25 -30 C) June normally is wet and cold... as stated last two weeks of July and all of August are good...

[Mel103]

That's great, thanks for the info

Think I might have to take a chance on June as the flights are 50% cheaper!

[Brendan]

mid-June is notorious for rainy periods of a week or so, but you can always visit Skaha.

Interesting.

in June 2008 I climbed in Squamish 3x/week, all month long - ALL big multi pitch on the Chief. Maybe we had a dry spell??

[pinner]

Just did a brief look over of some climate data from the weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca site. Unfortunately there's no data from Squamish, so we have to infer from the Vancouver and Whistler data, but...


In June 2007 there were 15 days in Whistler that show some precipitation, and the data is only for between 5 am and 6 pm, so this does not include any days where it was dry during these periods but rained in the night.

Vancouver June 2007 saw 21 days with precipitation, with 24 hour data coverage.


Whistler June 2008 had precip 9 of the first 12 days, but only 2 of the remaining 18 days. (again, no data between 6 pm and 4 am)

Vancouver 2008 similar: 8 of first 12 days had precip, then only 3 of remaining 18 days.


I counted any day with "rain" "rain showers" "drizzle" listed as weather for any period of the day as precip days. On 2 or 3 days each month, the entire day would be listed as "cloudy" or "mostly cloudy" etc. for every hourly interval except one or two, or rain would not show up until well after dark, so 2 or 3 "rain days" each month should probably be given to the "dry days".


So last year definitely saw a lot of drier days than the year previous, but it did indeed see a good week of wet rock at the beginning of the month.

Don't know if any conclusions one draws from only two years worth of Junes (and data from locations other than Squamish to boot) are good for anything, probably not, but I'm hopped up on coffee at work with nothing to do!

Maybe I'll look at 05 and 06 a little later....

[Brendan]

Countless times have I travelled to Squamish from downtown Vancouver (where it was raining steadily) and arrived to wonderful partly cloudy skies and perfect temps...

You can look online all you want, but you (we) really need a webcam to see what's really going on up there.

[Brendan]

^^
I meant arrived in Squamish while it was steadily raining in Vancouver

[pinner]

Definitely a good point. My girlfriend commutes to Van, and recently (two weeks ago? January?) there was a solid workweek where Vancouver was covered in low-lying, thick cold fog, but we had blue-bird days up to 12 degrees in the Squam all week....

[pinner]

Squamish webcams for anyone who's looking

Shannon Falls, looking north to Chief
http://images.drivebc.ca/bchighwaycam/p ... am106.html

Alice Lake hill, looking north
http://images.drivebc.ca/bchighwaycam/p ... am107.html

Cheakamus, looking south
http://images.drivebc.ca/bchighwaycam/p ... _cam4.html

View southwest over the town/Howe Sound
http://www.district.squamish.bc.ca/Webcam.aspx

Same webcam viewable as time-lapse fotog
http://zeitcam.com/webcam/squamish

View of Chief face-on
http://www.squamish.ca/webcam/webcamchief.jpg

From Adventure Centre south to Apron, Tantalus Wall, Bulletheads, Goat Ridge
http://www.squamish.ca/webcam/webcamwide.jpg

Looking west to Tantalus range from a B&B at the top of Thunderbird Ridge
http://www.nusalya.com/webcam/
don't think this one's functioning - no new snow visible, must be an old photo

There's another one of the spit/Howe Sound by Skypilot kiteboarding, but it isn't loading - not that we need any more anyway.

[Dru]

http://www.climate.weatheroffice.ec.gc. ... &autofwd=1



Scroll down to the "days with rainfall"; June has something like 50% more than July.

[J Mace]

Here is June 2008, all the data you want is on ec website for Squamish

http://www.climate.weatheroffice.ec.gc. ... ata_e.html

Rained 11 June 08 days but it wasnt much so it only amounted to 50% of normal

Rained 19 days June 07 and was 150% of normal

its a crap shoot, June used to be good but now I think it sucks or has a high probability of being the suck

July Aug stuff is dry weather is good and if its hot there is tonnes of shady stuff, Fluffy Kitten, Habrich, Joffre...