Tsylos Park Lodge sits at the north end of Chilko Lake — a fifty-mile turquoise expanse fed by glacial streams deep in British Columbia’s Coast Mountains, reachable only by a ninety-minute charter flight from Vancouver. The McLean family has run the lodge since 1957, now into its second generation, building a genuine wilderness institution around fly fishing, horseback riding, and grizzly bear viewing in a landscape so remote and so little visited that, as the family likes to say, once discovered it is rarely forgotten.
Riding here is built for intermediate to advanced riders rather than complete beginners — the terrain is genuinely challenging, the scenery genuinely spectacular, and the wildlife genuinely present, with black bears, bald eagles, deer, and the occasional grizzly all visible from the saddle. It is, unmistakably, an adventure lodge first and a riding destination second, though guests who come for the horses rarely leave disappointed.
The Experience
Your morning starts with a horse matched carefully to you by the lodge’s experienced wrangling staff, before you head out into country that guests consistently call some of the most beautiful they’ve ever ridden — turquoise lake, glacier-fed streams, mountain trails that demand real riding ability rather than passive observation. Wildlife sightings become a near-constant presence: black bears, bald eagles, deer, and, during the Chilko’s salmon run, grizzlies gathering along the river to feed, watched from a safe and respectful distance.
On days you’re not riding, you might hike, canoe, or kayak on the lake, or simply take the expansive decks and watch the light move across the Coast Mountains. Your evenings gather at the lodge’s stone fireplace — rebuilt in 2008 but carrying the same warmth the McLean family has offered guests since 1957 — for a chef-prepared meal and a soak in the hot tub overlooking the river.
By the end of your stay, you’ll understand why guests who arrive not quite knowing what to expect from somewhere this remote so often leave calling it one of the best weeks of their lives. No cell service, no Wi-Fi — deliberate, not incidental — and you’ll find Chilko Lake operating entirely on its own time, a long way from wherever you flew in from.
About Tsylos Park Lodge
Tsylos Park Lodge has operated continuously since 1957, when the McLean family first established a hunting and fishing camp at the remote headwaters of the Chilko River. Nearly seven decades on, the lodge remains in family hands, now run by the second generation, with a rebuilt main lodge — stone fireplace, soaring log beams, wraparound decks over the river — that reflects both the family’s history and a genuine passion for this particular corner of the Canadian wilderness.
Set within Tsylos Provincial Park, co-managed by BC Parks and the Xeni Gwet’in First Nations Government, the lodge sits at the edge of landscape considered sacred by the Xeni Gwet’in — Chilko Lake is the largest natural high-elevation freshwater lake in Canada, its turquoise waters and glacier-carved surroundings protected as much for cultural as ecological reasons. Riding here draws on this same wildness: trails that are neither maintained nor formally marked in the way a resort trail system might be, genuinely demanding terrain, and a herd cared for with the same rigor the McLeans apply to every part of the operation.
What sets Tsylos apart is the sheer scale of remove — no cell service, no Wi-Fi, a landscape genuinely few people have ever seen — paired with a level of comfort and hospitality that belies just how far guests have travelled to get there. For intermediate and advanced riders seeking wilderness in its most literal sense, few lodges anywhere offer quite this combination.
Our Stewardship
Tsylos Park Lodge sits within Ts’ilʔos Provincial Park, which is co-managed by BC Parks and the Xeni Gwet’in First Nations Government. This is a formal, government-recognised Indigenous co-management arrangement for land considered sacred by the Xeni Gwet’in.
