Porteau Cove Provincial Park 5.01

Porteau Cove Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada. Porteau Cove is located on the Howe Sound, the most southerly fjord in North America, 38 km north of Vancouver on the Sea-to-Sky Highway, 20 km south of Squamish, 8.5 km south of Britannia Beach. Other nearby communities include Brackendale and Lions Bay.The park is 50 hectares in size, and offers picnicing, camping, swimming, windsurfing, and a boat launch. Porteau Cove is a very popular area for scuba diving, with a series of artificial reefs including two sunken vessels. It has 44 drive-in campsites and 16 walk-in sites. 80% of the campsite may be reserved through Discover Camping, April through September. The park is maintained and operated by Sea To Sky Parks, based in Mount Seymour in North Vancouver, BC.On July 29, 2008, a large rockslide took place at the Porteau Bluffs, just north of Porteau Cove. No one was injured, however access to Whistler was hampered. The highway and the rail line run tightly together at the base of the bluffs, which is composed of slab-like chunks of granite, which formerly overhung the highway until scaling reduced some of the mass of the bluff. The slide has renewed concerns about the geotechnical safety of the route, and was a security issue during the 2010 Olympics events in Whistler. Communities north of the slide, including Whistler, are often isolated by such slides, but a "back door" paved route exists via Lillooet and the Fraser Canyon.