West Kootenay

Working out where to go? Browse the trip reports by objective for this area, and check the forecast before you commit.

The southern Selkirks, and the densest concentration of Alpine Club huts outside Rogers Pass. Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park holds three of them, each on its own side of the park.

Campgrounds — BC Parks

• Kokanee Creek — on Kootenay Lake, the main serviced campground, at the foot of the road up to the Gibson Lake trailhead
• Kokanee Glacier — the park itself, with backcountry camping alongside the cabins

Hostels

• HI Nelson — in town, and the usual staging point

Alpine Club of Canada huts

Huts book through the Alpine Club of Canada on a rolling window — six months ahead for members, three for everyone else.

• Kokanee Glacier Cabin — from the Gibson Lake trailhead; winter weeks are allocated by lottery
• Silver Spray Cabin — from the Woodbury–Fletcher forest service road, on the park's east side
• Woodbury Cabin — from the Woodbury trailhead, the smallest of the three

Recreation sites

Crown land camping, first come, first served, most of it free — see how it works for the rules and the road caveats.

• Bannock Point — free, and the pick of them: 34 walk-in sites on Slocan Lake reached by a 700 m moderately steep trail, rebuilt in 2024 with 12 sites up top and 22 down by the water. On the Valhalla side of the lake rather than the Kokanee side.
• Six Mile Lakes — four free sites at three connected sub-alpine lakes south of Nelson, with a 3 km nature trail from just south of the site.
• Boundary Lake — eleven free sites at a sub-alpine lake above Creston, forested and popular with ATVs.
• Halfway River Hotsprings — fee site north of Nakusp, twenty sites, and the reason most people go.
• Little Slocan and Stevens Creek — free valley-bottom sites for a night on the way through.

Fees in the Kootenay–Boundary district start on 1 April, and there are no reservations anywhere in it — everything is first come.