Given that I had limited time off, we decided to get up
early and drive to the trailhead, and then hike into the campground all in one
day. This meant doing 8 kilometres of very
strenuous hiking after a long drive.
When we got to the parking lot, there was a sign saying
that the Taylor Meadows and Garibaldi Lake campgrounds were full, and to camp
elsewhere. This was very frustrating, as
these were the only two places we could camp and still have access to the two
hikes we wanted to do. The parking lot
was overflowing onto the road, so it wasn’t that unbelievable that there would
be no campsites. We debated getting a
hotel in Squamish and trying our luck the next day, but we eventually decided
to hike in and try to find a spot in the overflow camping at Taylor Meadows. I just didn’t have enough time off work for
us to not hike that day. It was
partially bad planning on my part that caused this conundrum, as I had
requested time off in the middle of a long weekend.
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| The trail into the park |
We started on the trail, which shot seemingly straight
up. The trail was relentless, staying
quite steep the whole time. Many people
were hiking the trail in both directions, though the trail was fairly wide,
which made getting by people easy. The
crowds did get me nervous that there would not be room for us in the overflow
camping.
For the first bit of the hike, we seemed to be able to make it about three-quarters of an hour without needing a break. As we hiked farther and farther, the time between breaks shortened more and more, until we were stopping to catch our breath every ten to fifteen minutes. I felt my legs getting sore and I was a little worried that I would have difficulty on the hikes that we were going to be doing in the core area of the park.
After much tough slogging, we got to the junction of the
Taylor Meadows trail and the Garibaldi Lake trail. We turned onto the Taylor Meadows trail,
thinking it would level out and become less strenuous, but it kept chugging up
at the same rate as before. This was
very disappointing, but we knew we were close.
I was very stressed out at the prospect of not having a place to camp
after all the effort we had put out on this hike. My Dad did his best to calm me down, but I
knew I wouldn’t be relaxed until we had somewhere to camp.
After what felt like a journey to Mordor and back, we
were at the Taylor Meadows campground.
We headed towards the overflow camping, and as we had expected, every
campsite we passed was occupied. Then,
to our surprise, we came to two vacant sites.
This was very fortunate, as we had two tents, so even one open spot
wouldn’t have worked (the campsites were tent platforms that were two small to
fit both our tents on). I immediately
started getting my tent out, not wanting someone else to come by and steal this
spot. My Dad explored around a bit to
see if there were any better options, but in the end we settled on the first
two spots we saw.
My Dad’s tent platform was a little dilapidated and
required a bit of work before it was usable, but otherwise our sites were
perfect. I explored the Taylor Meadows
area a bit and was quite excited to see a glimpse of Black Tusk. I was really looking forward to climbing it the
next day.
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| Black Tusk from Taylor Meadows |
The next morning, I woke up freezing cold. According to my thermometer, it was almost at
freezing. I was surprised that it got
this cold in the middle of the summer, but we were at a fairly high elevation, so
I guess I should have expected it.
We groggily got up and after a quick breakfast, we
started on the trail up Black Tusk, the remnant of an extinct andesitic
stratovolcano.
The first bit of trail was reasonably level and
easy. The work didn’t truly begin until
we reached the junction where the Panorama Ridge trail took off. I don’t know if the trail got as steep as the
trail into the park, but it sure felt like it.
It was a little more relenting though, as there were some short sections
that were a little less steep.
Much of the hike was out of the trees and very
exposed. It was still fairly early in
the morning, but we knew that it would be very taxing to be hiking here once it
started to warm up.
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| A view of Garibaldi Lake |
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| Hoary marmot |
We came to the area where the official Black Tusk trail
ended. An unofficial, but well-trodden
route continued to the top. We followed
along this route, and soon we were contending with a frustrating amount of
loose rock. It started to take three
times as much effort as before to take a single footstep. This was easily the toughest part of our
whole trip. We slowed to a snail’s pace
as we crawled up the mountain, and even though it had warmed up, I was forced
into wearing all my layers as a result of the fierce wind.
We got to the base of the peak and took a break. A spectacular view opened up all around
us. We could see the snowy and jagged
peaks of the Garibaldi Mountains, the surreal turquoise waters of Garibaldi
Lake, and of course, the distinct looking pinnacle of Black Tusk.
A dodgy route continued around the base of the peak to a
“chimney”, where supposedly it was possible to get on the very top of Black
Tusk. Both of us started on the route,
but I turned around after feeling the route was a little unsafe. My Dad continued to the chimney, but elected
not to go up it due to the volume of people climbing it (only one person can go
up or down it at a time, so a person could wait a while for their turn). He did go up it, however, when he was in the
park 45 years ago, so it has already been crossed off his bucket list. I still have to get the gumption to do it at
some point in my lifetime.
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| Me with Garibaldi Lake in the background |
We soon were going down the trail. It got pretty hot, but not as hot as I had
expected. The hike down was pretty easy,
and soon we were at the junction where the trail to Garibaldi Lake split
off. We decided to hike to Garibaldi
Lake before returning to our campsite, as we had a lot of time left, and we
wanted to see the lake up close.
The trail to Garibaldi Lake was fairly easy, venturing
back into a densely wooded area. We
started seeing more and more people, until we were at the lake, which felt like
a mall on Black Friday. There were so
many people that my mind was kind of blown.
Part of it was likely because it was the Monday of a long weekend, but
it was still way more people than I expected to see.
The lake was pretty neat to see up close, but it wasn’t a
very pleasant place to spend a lot of time just due to the crowds. I would love to return and spend more time at
the lake in the shoulder season. It
would definitely be a nicer place to camp than Taylor Meadows.
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| Garibaldi Lake |
We returned to our campsite at Taylor Meadows and started
planning our next couple of days. We had
originally planned to hike Panorama Ridge the next day, and then hike out the
day after that, but seeing how little there was to do with so much time left in
the day (given how short the hike was), we decided to combine our final two
days of hiking into one day. This would
mean getting up ridiculously early, hiking up Panorama Ridge, hiking back to our
campsite, packing up our tents, and then hiking to the parking lot. This promised to be a full day, but we
decided to do it. Because of this, I
went to bed very early, wanting to be well rested for our last day in the park.
You can read about our last day in the park here.
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