Porteau Cove Road Dispersed Camping

One exit south of Porteau Cove Provincial Park is an exit for a paved parking lot (no camping signs) on the east side of hwy 99. There are 2 boondock areas here that are not the parking lot. Cross the bridge over hwy 99 to the west side and continue straight on the hard packed dirt road that leads immediately to a large, sunny clearing where you can camp. The road continues into the woods and dead-ends at a shady wooded site where there is a popular trail that leads to rocky overlooks of Howe Sound. This area is accessible to 2wd vehicles but I recommend you scope it out current conditions on foot first (park in the parking lot). There are more roads to explore on foot or by ATV and a couple abandoned vehicles in the area.

On the west side, a short, moderately steep gravel road extends from this lot to a larger clearing in the woods where you can camp - 4x4 definitely recommended to get up this road. There is a metal gate but it was open when we were there. The clearing unfortunately has been used for dumping – there were multiple large piles of construction type garbage around the perimeter of the clearing. Nevertheless we were able to find a garbage free area to camp. There is a previously “paved” road that leads steeply up the mountain on this side to a couple more camping spots. The road was disintegrating and overhung by many low branches. It crosses a bridge over a beautiful rushing mountain stream – great place to go for a hike.

Highway noise is audible from the site but not bad. Cell signal was good being close to the highway. If you go one exit north, enter the left turn lane to go to Porteau Cove Provincial Park to access their free day use area. You can explore the shoreline a short ways and also access their flush toilets and water spigot. They have a dump station in the campground past the gate but would not allow us to use it as we were not camping there, even when we offered to pay the $20 walk-in camping fee (no RV sites were available). Closest dump appeared to be Alice Lake Provincial Park just north of Squamish where you can dump for $5. Dump stations in Squamish at the Canadian Tire and Car Wash both closed by the town.

Both of these areas (east and west side of freeway) are now blocked off and no longer accessible for vehicles