Exploring the West Coast in the Mitsubishi RVR GT: A Weekend Getaway
The Mission: Exploration
Getting out and exploring every weekend is a mission of ours each year. This is made extremely easy living in Vancouver and being surrounded by an endless amount of amazing places within a few hours’ drive. For this trip, we decided to go with an old favourite and drive the spectacular Sea-to-Sky Highway to Squamish, the ultimate adventure playground on the West Coast. With a loose road trip itinerary in mind, we collected our camping gear, picked up some friends and their gear, and even had space left over for Jax, our 10-month-old golden retriever.
Mitsubishi RVR GT
One of our favourite things about the RVR is the four-wheel drive option. While there are a lot of cool spots you can access with a smaller car, having the extra clearance and four-wheel drive allows us to explore deeper into the wilderness and find more untouched and beautiful places, as we did on this trip to Squamish.
From Sea to Sky
For those who have driven the Sea-to-Sky Highway, you’ll know just how incredible it is to drive above Howe Sound with mountains towering above on both sides. And for those who haven’t, we recommend adding it to your bucket list as it is one of the most beautiful roads you will ever drive. We enjoyed all of the comfort and safety features, like forward collision mitigation, knowing we were safe on our drive. And at just 8.8 L/100 km we weren’t breaking the bank on fuel, either.
Our first stop on the road trip was Outbound Station to grab some burgers and enjoy the mountain views on the side of the road. After filling our bellies, we made the short drive the rest of the way to Squamish where we wandered around the Saturday farmers market, grabbed a coffee, and listened to some live music. We took a quick detour down some gravel roads to find an epic lookout of the Stawamus Chief so we could put the RVR through its paces. We found an epic spot with the Chief providing the perfect backdrop to show the RVR in its element.
Mountains Aplenty
After a few hours exploring and road tripping, it was time to grab dinner and head to camp. A takeout pizza from Backcountry Brewing was a great choice and we made the short drive to our camp spot right on the edge of Howe Sound. Sitting on the beach with friends, knocking back a few slices, and watching Jax run through the water as the sun went down over the mountains was a special end to the day.
Day Two of Big Views
Waking up to this view was also a fantastic start to the day and we admired the views before packing up camp. We loaded up the RVR with our gear and headed for the final stop on the trip. Some more extreme gravel roads meant we got to put the car into four-wheel drive mode and the RVR made light work of some steep, rocky sections of this gravel road, taking us to a beautiful waterfall tucked away in the forest.
A short walk from the RVR took us to a beautiful glacial blue waterfall and river that runs through a rocky gorge. You can view Mamquam Falls from above, but the best views are a short walk through the forest so you can look back at the waterfall. We came at the perfect time of day as light filtered through the trees and canyon to really make this place pop. This waterfall is a bit of a hidden gem in these parts so we didn’t have many other people to share it. That gave us a good excuse to spend some extra time soaking in the stunning views.
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