Atlin, BC, is a small gold rush town that is only accessible through the Yukon. It’s a 2-hour drive from Whitehorse.

Atlin Lake and the surrounding mountains are stunning and the historic gold rush village complete its charm. I’m not sure why we waited 15 years to come back here, but we are are glad we came on this perfect weekend.

We did two different hikes. The first one (and our favourite) was Ruby Mountain in the Atlin Volcanic Field. You have to drive about 30 min from town to get to the trailhead. If you have a high clearance 4x4 vehicle, you can even drive the first part that is on a mining road (all the info for directions and route finding are well explained here. Make sure to screenshot everything since there is no cell signal in Atlin). The hike starts already in the alpine and there are very few trail markers, so you’ll find having this info on hand useful as you ascend. It’s a short hike to a stunning 360 view with mountains all around as far as the eye can see. We were alone the whole time and even saw Dall sheep! That hike is easily in our top 5.

The trail starts here if you can drive up the mining road (high clearance 4 x 4 needed)

The second day, we did the classic Monarch Trail. The trailhead is only 1 km from the Pine Creek campground. As soon as you start climbing, you get open views of the Atlin Lake and surrounding peaks. You can decide to turn around after about 1.5 km at the second bench before the climb in the forest begins or decide to plow through that steep section without view to get into the alpine for the last 700 meters. The view is beautiful but not as different as you go up. You’ll find the driving directions and trail info here (please note that the name of the road where the trailhead is located is Warm Bay Road NOT Warm Spring Road as indicated).

The camping options are pretty limited, especially with a big bus, but we lucked out on one of of the few sites that are big enough at Pine Creek campground.

There are beautiful walk-in sites in the lower section of the Pine Creek campground.

Note that there is no cell signal anywhere in town. There are limited groceries, but you can get some good BC beer at the Trading Post.

For those who do not follow us on Instagram, Stout passed away on August 2nd. He had a Valley Fever relapsed and even with the medication, his body gave up the fight and he died peacefully in his sleep in the bus. He was six years old. We miss him dearly every day.