Day 1:
This hike was rated medium difficulty (well, at least the first 9km were), so we assumed it'd be a breeze compared to the "extremely difficult" Garibaldi hike we had done a few weekends before. Turns out that wasn't the case. This time we were carrying heavy backpacks, making the medium difficulty hike seem much harder than it should have been. Also, people are tougher in Canada. Medium difficulty to a Canadian is really hard to an American. The trail was very well maintained though and there were enough switchbacks that it was never impossibly steep.
About 5km in, there was a turn off to a viewpoint called "The Barrier". It's right off the trail and definitely worth checking out. Its like a giant natural dam which holds back Garibaldi Lake on the other side.
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| The Barrier |
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| Ev on the way to the campsite |
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| Taylor Meadows |
We set up the tent and then set off to the lake to check it out.
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| The view from the lake shore was pretty nice |
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| The water was quite blue |
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| Very very blue |
Once we got back to the campground we cooked some lovely dehydrated chicken saigon noodles. There was a little bearproof food shelter where we ate and kept our food. The guys next to us had brought candles and wine glasses and were having a nice candlelit dinner, we traded them some of our beer for some of their wine. Sleep came easy after a days worth of lugging backpacks up a mountain.
Day 1 total: 14 km
Day 2:
Situated in a nice shady spot, we were able to sleep in until 10, when we were woken by the buzz of mosquitoes and the discomfort of thin sleeping pads. After a quick breakfast we set off for Panorama Ridge. The going was slow, as this was significantly steeper than the hike we did the day before and we were significantly more sore. About 3km in we hit the snow, and from then on the trail was covered with patches of snow. The hike had some nice views:
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| far away mountains |
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| bear killed a moose? |
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| caught a glimpse of the lake |
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| black tusk |
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| bearded forest |
but the best views were at the top:
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| Garibaldi Lake |
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| Helm Glacier |
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| The wolf pack at the peak |
Some gnarly clouds were rolling in and we weren't dressed for the cold, so we didn't stay at the peak for very long. The last bit of the hike up was pretty sketchy and involved a lot of scrambling up snowy rocks so we were a bit worried about getting back down without falling off a cliff. Luckily we met some Canadians at the top of the ridge who had come prepared with a plan. They had seen a youtube video of people sledding down the big open snow bowl alongside the trail and they had brought garbage bags to sit on and slide down the mountain. Having brought no trash bags, we weren't sure we'd be able to follow them, but they reassured us that the people on youtube did it without anything to sled on. The Canadians, speaking in their awesome Canadian accents, momentarily contemplated the best way to sit on the garbage bags. "You gotta cut leg holes in it and wear it like a diaper." "Like a diaper, eh?" The first guy pulled his diaper-bag up to his chest and took a running leap, yelling "No shame on the mountain!" as he careened down from the ridge.
Ev and I followed closely after, using just our pants as sleds. Since it had been hot down in the meadow where we began the hike, I had worn only board shorts, which I immediately regretted. After about 10 seconds everything went numb and I forgot about all pain as I enjoyed the ride of my life, picturing myself as a penguin going down the slide in a giant arctic playground. As I thought I was nearing the end of the snow, I dug my heels into the ground in an attempt to slow myself down. This did nothing but launch large clods of snow in my face, temporarily blinding me and causing me to remember how incredibly cold I was. I finally came to a stop, realizing that slowing myself down had been completely unnecessary, as there was a large flat area that would have stopped me long before I hit any rocks.
Here's a video of Ev going down the top part of the mountain. It gets a lot steeper towards the bottom, but by then our fingers were too numb to use a camera.
From there we hiked down the rest of the way, with a brief stop to befriend a marmot, and picked up our backpacks at the campground and headed back to civilization.
Weekend total: 34.5km
If you're in the Vancouver/Whistler are and interested in doing this hike, check out the BC parks website at http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/explore/parkpgs/garibaldi/ It has really good information about the whole park and where to camp and where to hike. I would definitely recommend going to Panorama Ridge and sledding down. Bring a garbage bag or big piece of cardboard or something to keep snow from going up your pants. Your tent's rain fly would also work well as a multi-person sled.....I wish I had thought of that earlier. If you have the time, black tusk also looks awesome, but you'll need a helmet to climb it because of falling rocks. Camping at Garibaldi Lake would be cooler than in Taylor Meadows because the campground is right on the lake, but both are nice. There are a lot more mosquitoes in the meadow, though. You're supposed to pay $10/person/night to camp there, and the park rangers check the campgrounds to make sure everyone has a permit, but if you avoid them and just leave when they walk by your campsite then you could probably get away with not paying. That's kind of a dick move though because it's a really nice park and that money goes towards maintaining it, so if you don't pay then you might have bad mountain karma.
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