Squamish sits at the head of Howe Sound, where the fjord ends against a wall of granite, and the first thing it shows you is the Stawamus Chief, a monolith of rock rising some seven hundred metres straight out of the forest. It is one of the largest free-standing granite faces in the world, and on any good day the white specks on its walls are climbers, which has turned this small town into a minor capital of the sport. Beside it Shannon Falls drops in a long white thread, easily seen from the highway.
For riders, Squamish is the honest start or finish of the Sea to Sky Highway, the road between Vancouver and Whistler. The southern section from West Vancouver hugs the fjord, a series of fast, flowing bends cut into the cliff above the water, with views across to Anvil Island and the Britannia Beach mining museum on the way. The road was thoroughly rebuilt before the 2010 Winter Olympics, so the surface is generally excellent and passing lanes are frequent, but weekends in summer bring heavy traffic and speed enforcement, and you should assume the limits are watched. North of Squamish the road lifts toward Whistler through forested valleys beneath the glaciers of Garibaldi Provincial Park.
The town has a population of around seventeen thousand, which means everything you need: fuel on the highway, coffee shops, breweries, gear shops and a gondola that carries you up into the high country. The wind is the other defining thing. In summer a reliable afternoon breeze blows up the sound, and kiteboarders and windsurfers line up on the Spit to use it. Riders get a bit of it too, as a sideways push on exposed sections.
Squamish takes its name from the Skwxwú7mesh people, whose territory it is. In winter there is something else worth seeing: thousands of bald eagles come to feed on spawning salmon in the Brackendale area, a few kilometres north, from about December to February. It is a different season for riding, with ice at altitude, but anyone who happens to be here then should pull over and see them.