Mount Garibaldi is a dormant stratovolcano located in the Garibaldi Ranges in Garibaldi Provincial Park in Southwestern BC. It’s located between Squamish and Whistler areas.
With good weather weekend, Nima and I decided to pull the trigger to conquer Mt Garibaldi with the plan of camping on Brohm Ridge close to the glacier.
On Sat afternoon, May 27th, Nima and I drove from Vancouver and arrived at the Cheekeye FSR 660m elevation mark just after the bridge where we parked at the pullout. We prepared and geared up, and started the long hike up just before 4pm. The first 6 km hiking on the logging road was decent and boring except for when we scared a black bear away just 1 km into our hike. Nima was talking loudly telling the bear to bug off while the bear hid behind the trees and watched us walk pass. Other than the excitement of spotting a scaredy cat bear, the sun was scorching hot which made it uneventful to hike on unshaded areas of the FSR.
Finally, we hit the snow line at the 1300m elevation just after 6pm with some cold breeze to cool off. We continued to hike on the snow, passing the Brohm Ridge gate and arriving at the Brohm Ridge Chalet at 7pm where the Black Tusk Snowmobile shelters and storage areas are.
After surveying the area for about 10 minutes, we carried on with our remaining 5 km to where we plan to camp at the 1900m mark on Brohm Ridge. Snow was soft but we didn’t strap on snowshoes nor crampons. We plodded up to the lookouts on Brohm Ridge and were met with incredible panoramic views of Table Mountain, Tantalus Ranges, and with clouds slightly hovering over the top of Mt Garibaldi.
Thereafter, we continued plodding up and down the snow with the sun soon to set behind us, passing other campers to our left, and to our final destination for the night at 1900m high just 200m before the pinnacle where we found a nice spot to camp.
We set up our tent, sleeping gear, ate, relaxed, and just enjoyed the night views. A silhouette of Garibaldi could be barely seen, lights in Squamish, and stars. We turned in just before 11pm with a plan to wake up at 4am the next day to start the slog up our objective.
So 4am arrived, we prepared with crampons on, rope secured, ruck up and off we went. The pinnacle was completely bare naked. No snow at all. We didn’t feel like taking off our crampons even though it would have been a good idea. But we got lazy and just went on the rocks up and over the obstacle and onto the bare ridge of Warren Glacier.
Warren Glacier we arrived after almost 2 hours. We checked our rope and tighten our crampons, then traversed on to the glacier heading east slightly north towards the ridge of Garibaldi. There was lots of snow on the glacier and quite firm. We heard some avalanches or rocks falling and fortunately it was on the opposite direction of the mountain face of where we are heading. Some crevasses could be seen on the north west of the glacier but didn’t pose a threat to us as we were going away from that direction. Also, the awesome views kept us motivated.
As we trek towards the Northeast ridge, we saw a bear about a few hundred meters away running across the glacier. Quite unusual but we figure it’s having some glacier fun. Just before 7am, we veered to our right and went up the slope towards the ridge. Took our time and rested at each 50 steps up. 30 minutes later, the head of Garibaldi was covered in clouds. As we approached closer to the headwall, sky became more clear.
Once at the head of Mt Garibaldi, we stayed on our right side of the slope as there is a huge opening of a crevasse seen to our left. At this point, Nima and I treaded carefully going pass it and plodding up above it.
The last 500m was semi steep with loose snow. There were 6 other hikers down climbing carefully. We went up passed them and reached the final ridge of the summit and with just 50m away. We excitedly went over the bare rock, 20 steps on the snow and onto the summit of Mt Garibaldi at 9:30am. Mission Accomplished!
Views are incredible! Garibaldi Lake, Table Mountain, Mt Price and Castle Towers could be seen, while Atwell Peak was covered in clouds that never seemed to go away. Nima and I stayed up there for a good 40 minutes indulging the views, nap resting until it was time to go down.
