For those heading up to Mount Seymour to snowshoe the Dog Mountain or First Pump trails, it’s valuable to know about new parking rules. It’s still free to park, but backcountry users have been restricted from using the main parking lots.

Winter visitors (Nov to Apr) who are not using the CRA but wish to enjoy the backcountry have access to Dog Mountain, First Lake Trail and the Mt. Seymour Main Trail and are required to park in parking lots 1 and 5. Overnight parking is permitted in parking lot 1 and in the designated area of parking lot 2.

Lot 1 is at the group camp site, a 1.5 km hike from the start of snowshoeing trails with a 500 meter elevation gain. Lot 5 is along the side of the road. On nice weekends, both lots fill up quickly. Check the Mt_Seymour Twitter feed for updates about road conditions and full parking lots.

On Saturday morning at 10:45 AM they tweeted about the parking lots being full, and suggested using shuttle from the base of the mountain. The shuttle is $6/person each way, so it’s not worth it for large groups. Luckily, when we showed up at 1:00 PM, enough people had left that we had no problems finding a spot.

The hike up from parking Lot 1 adds another 20 minutes to your hike, so plan ahead.