An Eagle’s Eye View of the Vancouver Section
By Paul Geddes for the 2025 ACC Gazette
ACC Vancouver is one of the largest and most active sections in the club with over 1,200 members in our community who have access to courses and trips, backcountry huts, and an extensive social calendar.
One of the big attractions of the South Coast is the variety of our local terrain and the options that gives to ACC-V members for world-class hiking, mountaineering, rock climbing and backcountry skiing. It’s common for members to hike up Grouse Mountain before work or ski on Cypress Mountain after work. Volunteer trip coordinators and mentors organize car-pooling trips to nearby weekend locations.
Our section volunteer course instructors have introduced hundreds of members to rock climbing, ski touring, glacier travel and mountaineering. Other volunteers organize summer evening climbing sessions at Squamish or gym climbing in the city. The early season Basic Mountaineering Course always has a waiting list. Also popular are our ACMG-led AST-1 avalanche safety courses, a practical prerequisite for being in the Coast backcountry.
Access and environment issues are important to our section and ACC-V is a founding member of the Federation of Mountain Clubs of BC. Through the umbrella of the FMCBC, we work together with other outdoor clubs in the province to improve backcountry access for public non-motorized users and to resolve land use issues. One FMCBC initiative that is very important locally is protecting rock climbing at the Smoke Bluffs near Squamish.
Not everything is about being outdoors. ACC-V has a social director who organizes our monthly socials, where there is a buzz in the air with loud chatter and laughter! People are talking about their latest and planned adventures, and an interesting presentation fills out the evening. At our annual general meeting each November, members are encouraged to join our executive team for even more section fun!
Mountain culture is an important part of our section’s annual calendar, including running the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour screenings in Vancouver. The screening is our section’s major fundraiser and allows us to fund our various projects. We also support the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival.
The voice of our section for almost a century has been the section newsletter, Avalanche Echoes. First published in 1927, it has been the channel to announce our climbing schedule and post trip reports for our members. Printing ceased in 2014 in favour of a monthly digital newsletter, and we are in the process of digitizing past issues for a historical record of our activities.
Also worth noting during the UN Year of Glaciers’ Preservation is the importance of the Sea to Sky region in the measurement of glacial retreat. ACC Honorary Member Karl Ricker has documented recession on the Wedgemount Glacier in Garibaldi Park every year for the past 50 years and his work can be found online and in the 2024 Canadian Alpine Journal.
The Vancouver Section operates two backcountry huts and is a major stakeholder in a third. The Tantalus Hut at Lake Lovely Water west of Squamish was built by the section in 1961. Today we work with BC Parks, Indigenous Leaders and local helicopter companies to manage this beautiful location.
The Jim Haberl Hut, higher in the Tantalus range, was built with the help of dozens of volunteers in 2005 and 2006. Originally built as a summer base for the excellent mountaineering in the area, it has recently become popular for spring ski mountaineering as well.
A dedicated crew of section members makes up our Huts Committee that manages the reservations, annual maintenance, and capital projects.
Along with the Whistler Section, ACC-V contributes to the board of the Kees and Claire Hut on the Spearhead Traverse, helping to ensure the ongoing operation of Canada’s largest and most modern non-profit backcountry hut.
The purpose of the Vancouver Section remains to safely mentor new members, to run trips, and engage our members with an active social schedule. Through our membership, events and huts, we bring the South Coast Mountain outdoor community together.
Regional ACC Sections are the Alpine Club of Canada’s strength. Membership in an ACC Section enables members to participate in numerous summer and winter mountaineering, rock climbing, and skiing activities, coordinated by experienced amateur leaders in their local area. The majority of activities offered by sections are either free or are offered on a break-even basis to their members. Through ACC Section trips you’ll learn all the basics you need to travel safely in the mountains, while meeting new friends to enjoy your experiences with.
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