When do I need a day-use pass for Garibaldi Park this summer?  

After each day-use pass season, we look at the data to help us make decisions on how we can make improvements. We are taking continued steps toward aligning day-use pass requirements with visitor use management needs at Garibaldi this summer.   

Why day-use passes at Garibaldi Park? 

Day-use passes have been required seasonally at Cheakamus, Diamond Head, and Rubble Creek trailheads in Garibaldi Park since 2020. Each trailhead has its own parking area shared by campers and day-users. Thousands of vehicles use each lot every month (Figure 1). Without day-use passes, traffic would expand and overwhelm the current facilities during peak days in the summer. 

Day-use passes also help reduce crowding in the park, particularly at popular viewpoints or narrow sections of trail. Based on monitoring and visitor survey results in 2024, visitors’ experience of crowding was at a tolerable level in the Rubble Creek trail network. However, visitors to Garibaldi Lake were quite sensitive to changes in crowding, and changes to pass availability may have consequences for visitor experience. Evaluation of in-park crowding helps inform key decisions made by BC Parks. This can include things like parking lot expansion, day-use pass capacity, and investigation into other visitor use management tools.

Passes also provide us with more opportunities to connect with visitors and to better manage cultural and environmental values. While these goals can be very important, they are alone not enough to warrant pass requirements at Garibaldi Park. With this in mind, BC Parks is aligning day-use pass requirements only with days where managing capacity is truly necessary. 

2025 day-use pass changes for Garibaldi Park: 

 For the 2025 season, day-use passes will be required during the following times:  

• Friday through Monday and holidays from June 13 to October 13 at Rubble Creek and Diamond Head.  

• Each day from June 13 to September 1 and Friday through Monday from September 2  until October 13 at Cheakamus.

These changes are based on 2024 pass data (Figure 2), which shows most visitors want to reserve passes on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays.  

These adjustments are part of our much larger goal of ensuring day-use passes and other visitor use management tools meet the specific needs of each park. A crucial part of working towards this goal is monitoring impacts, and iterating, improving, and adapting requirements as things change. The data we collect is necessary to help us understand what’s happening on the ground and where changes are needed. More comprehensive day-use pass data can be found on our reports page.