Black Tusk, Garibaldi Lake

Garibaldi Lake is one of the most scenic places in the Sea to Sky corridor, and it makes for a satisfying hike either as an overnight or day hike (I've done it once each way before). With my good friend Aviv about to leave Vancouver to begin his PhD at MIT, an overnight trip to Garibaldi Lake was proposed, and we quickly had a group of seven (hikers, not painters) who were ready to go. Aviv also mentioned that he wanted to climb Black Tusk; I thought that you needed ropes to climb it, but apparently not.

SATURDAY: We drove up from Vancouver in 2 cars, and after a bit of confusion involving one car driving past the turnoff, we arrived at the trailhead at a reasonable hour. The hike up was as I remembered it - nice wide trail, LOTS of switchbacks, a fair bit of elevation but at a steady grade. I think it took us 2 or 3 hours, or maybe a bit longer - we took a fairly easy pace. We had a snack break at the Taylor Meadows / Garibaldi Lake trail junction, where we were accosted by some very aggressive birds (Whisky Jacks?). I guess they were accustomed to hikers coming through, because they didn't think twice about landing on your head and then grabbing whatever food you were about to put into your mouth. Some hikers passed by and told us that the lake campsites were completely full (Garibaldi is a very popular area), so we went straight to Taylor Meadows and found it almost deserted. We chose a nice campsite, ditched our packs, and headed down to the lake to see the sights and relax.

After the lake we headed back to Taylor Meadows and ate some dinner. The August wildflowers were out so we had some beautiful surroundings. Before we went to bed we got a glimpse of the sun setting on Black Tusk - our destination for the next day.

SUNDAY: We got up, had an early breakfast, and were hiking through Taylor Meadows by 7:30am. It was a nice flat walk through beautiful meadows full of flowers, and we could see Black Tusk ahead of us. It looked imposing. We started climbing and left the trees behind, getting to the end of the "maintained trail" at around 9am.

From there it was half walk and half easy-scramble up loose volcanic rock to a ridge, which we followed for a while, and then traversed across the base of the tusk until we got to the "chimney." There were quite a few exposed sections with a sheer drop on one side, and although it would be hard to fall, I still don't like heights! I didn't take many photos on this section, so I've included a few of Chris' excellent shots. Compared to this chimney, however, this part of the ascent was easy.

The chimney was the only way up to the top of Black Tusk. Officially it's a "difficult" scramble, and we were supposed to wear helmets to protect against falling rock (it's all very loose volcanic rock), although Chris was the only one of our group who had one. It looks very steep, exposed and intimidating. I was pretty hesitant to go up it, but decided to try it after some of our group members managed to climb it without falling to their death. The chimney has a number of plateaus, so once I got onto the first ledge it didn't feel nearly as exposed. It does get tight in places, and I had to be careful where to grab onto because the rock was so loose. At the top of the chimney I pulled myself up a crack, and from there we were able to walk to the peak of Black Tusk!

We met some people who had camped on the summit - must have been a frigid night, we were cold at Taylor Meadows! After lots of summit photos and a celebratory glass of wine that Eric brought, we headed back down the chimney, which I felt was much easier to descend than ascend for some reason. Once our group was down, we noticed that there was a lot of traffic heading up the chimney - it got extremely busy. I'm glad that we went early when there were very few people around, and avoided being pelted by falling rock.

After the excitement of climbing Black Tusk, the rest of the day was a very relaxed walk back down to Taylor Meadows to take camp down, pack our bags, and walk back down the switchbacks to the parking lot. I'm glad I decided to climb Black Tusk but I don't think I would've done it without seeing my friends do it first!