Egypt Lake Trail via Healy Pass

Egypt Lake Trail via Healy Pass is a 15.3-mile out-and-back from the Sunshine Village parking lot to Egypt Lake Campground, returning by the same route. The mapped walk to camp is 12.3 km one way; allow about 9 to 10 hours for the full day with stops. This is a serious backcountry outing, not a quick lake stroll. The campground sits above Pharaoh Creek, about three-quarters of a kilometre from Egypt Lake itself, so the lake adds a separate walk beyond the trail’s mapped endpoint. If you have a reserved campsite, I’d make this an overnight trip and leave time for the lake and the nearby basin.

The trail begins behind the lower gondola terminal, on its west side, at the end of Sunshine Village’s access road. Cross the broad bridge and follow the wide track into forest. For the first five kilometres or so, the grade is mostly gradual. You cross Sunshine Creek on a long bridge, then Healy Creek, and pass through avalanche paths that are largely screened by trees. Healy Creek Campground is a useful halfway landmark, but it is not the main destination. Most of the opening stretch feels like a steady forest approach, with only occasional openings between the trees.

Beyond Healy Creek, the climb becomes more sustained. At the junctions for Simpson Pass, keep to the signed Healy Pass route; the other branch leads toward Simpson Pass and the Sunshine Meadows. Higher up, the forest thins and the trail breaks into open subalpine meadows with scattered larches. Their needles turn yellow in late September and early October, though the timing shifts from year to year. The climb tops out at Healy Pass, about nine kilometres from the start. From the crest, look west across the Egypt and Scarab lakes toward the pyramid-shaped Pharaoh Peaks. For a photo, keep some of the meadow or rocky trail in the foreground; the lakes and peaks look smaller without that scale.

From the pass, the trail drops northwest through meadow and then forest into the Pharaoh Creek valley. It loses several hundred metres before flattening near the campground. You pass a ranger cabin and cross Pharaoh Creek before reaching the E13 tenting area. The campground is set in a meadow above the creek rather than beside Egypt Lake. A separate path continues about 0.75 km to the lake, a worthwhile addition if you are camping, but it is not included in the 15.3-mile return distance here.

The return adds the climb from camp back to Healy Pass before the long descent to Sunshine Village. Expect roughly 1,100 metres of climbing over the full out-and-back, and do not underestimate the second pass crossing late in the day. A shorter alternative is the separate Healy Pass out-and-back: it turns around at the pass, is about 17.6 km round trip, and still takes six to seven hours. That gives you the high meadows and pass views without the extra descent to Egypt Lake.