Drive past the Airport on Airport Rd, just past Glacier View Campground but before the gun range, there is a day use area access road with a waterfall at the end. That used to be an old campground. Just over half way down the road there's a lower pull out on the right (east) park there and then walk back down the road about 40ft and cross the creek (west) and that's where the trail starts.
Lost Toque (pronounced two-k) is a nice moderate hike for the first half. Once you get to East Airport Overlook it begins to pick it up a little. Soon after Big Boulder Overlook it gets interesting. It stays a hike for several hundred more feet but then becomes a bushwhacking scramble. If you're able to keep to the trail it's not much real bushwhacking. Then there's a little bit of very minor climbing, like 12ft of 5.7 slopes. Then you're out of the alders and climb up a steep grassy slope, you might want to bring gloves. But after that you're in the alpine with incredible views.
There wasn't much limbing done to the trail to preserve the canopy and keep from having to battle overgrowth. There's frequent bear activity on the trail so be as best prepared as you like to be when handling bears.
Please do not use this trail for trapping or hunting. It was a lot of effort for the sake of people to enjoy observing and being in nature.
Lost Toque Trail was begun as a path local photographer Zachary Sheldon would skin up in winter. Picking a line through the tops of the alders when the bush whacking was easiest. One evening in a rush to get altitude before the sun set, he took off his ski and gear and punched up the slope and scrambled up a wall. When he got back down the wind had taken his favorite winter hat, a toque his mom bought him roughly 15 years earlier. With the guiding season quiet in 2020 he decided to find a route up West Peak.
