I think I fall a little more in love with the Sunshine Coast every time I visit. This was my third trip to the coast for the year and I was really excited to explore a new provincial park. The Sunshine Coast has a pretty extensive network of huts and I was keen to check out some more after having such a great time on the Sunshine Coast Trail last year.

Tetrahedron Park is a year round destination and my friend Eddie proposed that we check out the park in late September, with the goal of doing a bit of reconnaissance to come back in the winter on skis. So I obviously said yes and we were joined on the trip by Brandon (of course) and his friend Adriana. It was a long weekend, so we set off early on Saturday morning to catch the ferry and drive up to the trailhead.

Tetrahedron Park is located on the north part of the lower Sunshine Coast, nestled between Sechelt Inlet and Howe Sound. You have to drive all the way to Sechelt and then continue up past Porpoise Bay Provincial Park towards Tuwanek. From there you get on the Grey Creek Service Road and head up towards the park. The road starts with a pretty steep climb up Suicide Hill, but I don’t think you need 4WD or high clearance for it (though winter is probably a different story).

After a few kilometres on gravel road, you hit a branch, with the left branch going up towards Richardson Lake, and the right branch continuing to the trailhead for Tetrahedron. There’s a lower parking lot, which was empty when we arrived, and then 1.7km further, the upper lot. The upper lot is definitely intended for 4WD, so just stick with the lower lot if you don’t have the right vehicle. There were a few other cars in the upper lot when we arrived, but there’s 4 huts in the Park, so we figured it wouldn’t be too busy.

The huts in Tetrahedron Provincial Park are managed and cared for by the Tetrahedron Outdoor Club. You can visit their website here and you should e-transfer them the fee for the huts before you go. It’s $15 per person to stay overnight in the huts, or $10 per person if you’re a member. Brandon got the membership, but the rest of us just paid $30 for two nights. We didn’t know there’s also a facebook group for the park, but we learned from other campers that it’s common courtesy when visiting the huts to post your details in the facebook group so that the cabins don’t get too crowded.

The park isn’t set up as a thru hike like the Sunshine Coast Trail, but more of a loop of huts extending to different points of interest around the park. We could only stay in 2 huts, but we were keen to visit all 4 and planned our trip accordingly. A few other important things to know before visiting though is that most of the park is located in the watershed. As a result, dogs are not allowed in the park and you’re not allowed to swim in the watershed either. You’re also not supposed to do any tenting in the park and all overnights should be limited to the huts. This is to minimize impacts to the natural environment and preserve the quality of the watershed.

There were some people breaking these rules (we saw some dogs), but we opted to follow them, which for me mostly meant no swimming. However, when I examined the map at McNair Cabin, it looks like McNair Lake is actually outside of the watershed, so potentially you are allowed to swim at this one, but we still refrained because we weren’t certain.

It was a gorgeous sunny day and I really wanted to stay at Mount Steele Hut, so we decided to hightail it up the mountain for our first night. On the way in you have the option to detour to Bachelor Cabin, but we opted to postpone that visit and head straight to Edwards Cabin first instead. The hike starts on an inclined gravel road and then progresses into the forest where it flattens out. It’s approximately 5km to Edwards Cabin, which is the most central hut in the park. If you’re not a fan of backpacking, this would be a great place to camp because from here, you’re ideally situated to day trip to both McNair Cabin and Mount Steele.

It’s a nice enough cabin and we stopped and ate lunch on the front deck. There’s a wasp nest there currently, so definitely exercise caution. From Edwards, we started our ascent up to Mount Steele. It’s another ~3.5km to the Mount Steele Cabin, but it’s all uphill and covers 400m in elevation gain. You pass through some meadows 1km before the top and we stopped again to fill up our water bottles from the creek. We assumed there would be a water source at the top, but I wasn’t sure how stagnant it would be, so I took advantage of the creek (but fortunately the source at the top was also a nice running creek).

In terms of reconnaissance for a winter trip, the climb up through the woods is steep, but it’s all in the trees, so I think I’d be comfortable there in the winter. The only part I didn’t really like is after the meadow there’s a steep edge section at the top of a potential terrain trap. I’m not sure I’d be quite ready to hike up on skis, though it might look different in the winter.

The hut itself is really cool though. Most of the hike is in the forest, but shortly before the top you poke out into the sub alpine and get lovely views of the surrounding mountains. The hut isn’t located at the very top of the mountain, but rather at the base of the peak, so I assume in the winter that skiers run laps up and down the peak. The hut seemed more tailored to winter use than summer use, but I also assume it gets really popular on a nice, snowy weekend.

That said, I still loved the Mount Steele Cabin! It had gorgeous views in all directions and it was totally empty when we arrived. Like most huts, all the cabins in this park had communal kitchen space and tables on the main floor and a sleeping loft above. The huts are advertised as sleeping 12 people and I thought this was very accurate. There’s a wood stove on the main floor, but they have to helicopter in the wood, so it’s only intended for winter use. Mount Steele had a brand new outhouse that was in fantastic condition and one thing I really liked is how they’ve set up the grey water.

There’s a double sink that drains into buckets in the cabin and then another sink in the outhouse that drains into the pit. So you essentially dump all your water in the outhouse, which is a pretty elegant solution to managing food bits and scents.

We were the first to arrive to the cabin, but we were joined shortly after by a mom and 3 boys. They live in the area and were super friendly and huge fans of the cabin, so it was nice to meet them. Later on in the evening 2 other guys showed up, followed by a trio very late at night. So the total number of people in the cabin was 13. 11 people slept upstairs and the 2 guys slept downstairs because they were planning to leave really early in the morning.

We hung around the cabin in the afternoon and around 5pm packed our bags to hike up to the summit. Me and Brandon have gotten in the habit of hiking up to viewpoints for supper, so we brought all our food with us and figured it would be the optimal spot for sunset. There is a clear path up the to top of the summit, but Eddie and Brandon wanted to try another route and we reluctantly followed them. For the most part it wasn’t too bad, but it did involve a little bit of bushwacking around some steeper sections, so I wouldn’t recommend. Just follow the trail.

The view from the top is incredible though! On one side, you can see the whole park out to Tetrahedron Peak, while on the other side you can see down to Sechelt Inlet. Brandon made us thai curry chicken at the top and we enjoyed the view. It was a bit windy and cold up there, so Eddie and Adriana held out until the sunset and then started to head back. Me and Brandon stayed a bit longer and started to make our way down closer to dusk. We got most of the way without headlamps, but needed them for the last 10 minutes.

Eddie taught us to play Wizard to end the night. It ended up being a lot longer than we expected and we were all very tired, so we didn’t end up finishing, but when we called it quits at 10pm I was comfortably in the lead! One nice thing about the huts is that you don’t have to bring a thermarest if you don’t want to because there are mats in the loft. I brought mine anyways because I wasn’t sure how busy it would be, and I ended up doubling up because the hut mattresses are pretty soft. It wasn’t the best night’s sleep with so many people in the loft, but it was nice and warm with all that body heat!

Check back next week for Part 2!