An epic day!

Thursday 12th September

Our alarms went off at just before 6am having packed our bags for our big day out the night before. We got ready and got on the road in the car for a half an hour drive to the car park for our hike – we were going to be doing the Garibaldi hike where there is the option of hiking to Garibaldi lake and back (roughly a 6 hour round trip) or once you get to the lake then hiking up to the top of Panorama Ridge (an 8-12 hour round trip depending on fitness etc). We were starting the hike early at 7am to give us the option of the full hike but not putting pressure on ourselves to do it if we felt tired by the time we got to the lake.

The hike started straight away in woodland and very soon after entering the woods we came across bear signs…

This meant that the campsite was closed not the hiking trail itself. However, we knew to be careful so had our bear spray on us to hand and kept our eyes peeled the whole time, talking loudly to each other as you’re meant to so that bears hear you coming and hide away rather than making a bear jump and potentially angering it! We were quite weary to start with, especially as the trail was quite quiet at this time in the morning.

The first 9km of the hike (which would take us to the lake) was going to be in the woods zig-zagging our way up, sometimes quite steep and sometimes more of a gradual incline.

At the 4km mark a group of three Canadians who looked roughly our age went to overtake us on the trail and I decided to ask them how much further it was to the lake (because at this point we didn’t know what distance the lake was at). They told us it would be 5km and we got chatting to them so started to walk with them. They were going to be doing the full hike to the top of Panorama ridge. They were really lovely people – all nurses from Vancouver who on their days off do outdoorsy things like hiking together. We enjoyed chatting to them – it makes the kilometers pass quicker and also made us feel much more at ease about the bears as they were locals and go hiking all the time! However, because of this, they were very fit and going at a much quicker pace than we had been. I was determined to keep up as we felt better about the bears being part of a group but it was a real workout!

At the 9km point we got to the turning point where you could either turn down to the lake and then start hiking back or you could carry on 7km further up to panorama ridge. It was going to be a big hike for us (having not hiked much previously), but our new friends told us it was an absolutely perfect day (weather wise) for it and would be amazing views from the top, so we decided to continue on up with them. Therefore, we didn’t turn down to the lake, but got a glimpse of its beautiful turquoise water through the trees. We couldn’t wait to see the view of it from the top!

At this point, two more of the Canadian’s friends joined our group – even safer in bigger numbers!

The next part of the hike opened up into beautiful meadow scenery with lots of pine trees around. This felt really unusual to be seeing this high up in the mountains! We were told that if we were going to see a bear this is where we would see one!

The last 2km of the hike up to the top turned from meadows to more of a rock scramble climb.

It got more and more steep and scrambly…

It was hard work but we could finally see the top…

5 hours after we started and 16km we made it to the top! The colour of the lake was unbelievable…

Unfortunately I felt quite uneasy at the top with it being so high (and quite steep drops – hence the name panorama RIDGE), so I went back down to just a slightly lower level while Harry took some amazing photos of the views of Garibaldi lake and surrounding mountains…

We sat and ate our packed lunch at the slightly lower part that I had gone down to (still with a lovely view) and said goodbye to our new Canadian friends who started their hike back down.

We then began our descent, still with amazing views! 

We got down the rocky part of the descent and then entered the meadows again (aka bear land!) which we were slightly more hesitant about without our Canadian friends. However, every 10ish minutes we tended to bump into other humans doing the hike. During this part we also saw chipmunks and marmots which were cute but quick, so we’re hard to get photos of!

Once we made it through the meadows, we got back to the turning point where we could either continue our descent back down to the car park or could walk 500m down to see the lake. We opted for the latter – if it looked that beautiful from above then it must be very beautiful close up… And it most certainly was!

We walked round the edge of the lake – more like jumping from stone to stone which was fun!

We couldn’t visit a beautifully clear glacier fed lake without a quick dip!

We didn’t stay in long – it was freezing!

We dried off quickly and got back changed and then started the 9km descent back down through the woods to the car park. The cold water dip had refreshed us and we were feeling super happy – just the last push!

However, this soon wore off… The last 6km of the descent seemed to go on forever, with never ending switchbacks and now very sore legs!

32.5km, 1,637meters climbed, 48,000 steps and just over 8 hours moving time (11 hours including stops) later, we finally made it back to the car park two very tired humans, but so happy to have completed such an amazing hike and in one piece (and not a bear snack)!

We drove back to our apartment in Whistler, had hot baths, cooked ourselves some pasta for dinner and then watched some TV before flopping into bed. Wow what a day!