Hike Watersprite Lake Trail

From the parking lot it's a steady climb up an old service road with various cross ditches and overgrown branches, and small trickling creeks to walk through. You gain roughly 300m from the parking lot, over 3km, and takes about an hour to reach the actual trail. It's well marked with tons of flagging tape, on your left, but if you ignore 6 or 7 strands of tape inconspicuously dangling in a clutter, you might have a boring day.

You get a taste of what is to come at this initial descent into the meadows, a not-so well beaten path, some creeks to walk through, and mud to boot. Maybe 5 minutes and you come into view of the meadows, with lakes, mountains etc.

Follow the trail as it meanders over roots and mud, until you come to your first creek crossing. There are 3 fallen trees to cross (the middle is like a trap door, very slippery), the water is moving fast, but at worse you're gonna get wet boots.

The trail after goes over some trees, into a soggy grassland, but is all flat. The second crossing is much nicer than the first, in that there is a rope to help you cross, and just 1 log to cross on. Shortly after this point is all up hill, and you come to your first boulder field.

The navigation is fairly straight forward, but if you climb too far up the boulder field, you'll have to come back down as the trail access is closer to the middle (and over snow, if it is still there).

It's a slip and slide all the way up to the next boulder field, with lots of deep mud, but well flagged so there is very little confusion. Over another boulder field, and a bit more mud, and you're there. At the top I got confused a bit as there is flagging tape that led to the left and to a waterfall. But if you just need to get to the lake, the trail very obviously goes straight up (must have been all the mosquitoes??).

Our Samoyed(dog) is a bit of a rock star, he absolutely loves hiking with us, and has well callused feet, and is in really good shape. I don't recommend bringing a couch potato dog to this hike, the boulder scrambling can be difficult.

Round trip was 6 hours, with 30 minutes at the top taking photos and having a snack.

From Vancouver, drive up highway 99, and turn onto Mamquam Main, just after passing the Stawamus Chief, and just before Squamish. Proceed northeast
along the potholed Mamquam main till you get to the bridge over the Mamquam River at km 12.7. Cross the bridge and swing east to cross a second bridge over Skookum creek, just below the power station. A short
time later, turn left (north) onto the new Skookum Dam road. Drive up this road, and follow it for 2.9 km. At 2.9km take the right fork marked by a giant vent (looks like a metal candy cane)