Garibaldi Lake Trail

Over the long weekend I did a fantastic hike up to Garibaldi Lake... sort of. With snow shoes on and large heavy backpack loaded with overnight camping gear and photography stuff, a good friend Shawn and I hit the trail. We left Vancouver at sunrise, had an epic breakfast at Fergie's in Squamish, then hit the trail. To our surprise, we had to hike up the service road just to get to the entrance thanks to the 1.5ft of snow on the road, adding an extra 2km to the 9km trail, but it's worth it! It's a nice hike through the forrest, lots of switchbacks and a decent grade.

The first stop out of the trail is barrier ridge. It's apparently called that because the lake was formed by an ancient volcano, and if the barrier were to let go due to an earthquake or something, Squamish would be flooded. By the time we go there we could see that the sun was going to set perfectly in the view from the barrier, so we decided to just camp there and skip the lake (where the sunset is nice but not great - it sets opposite to the mountain view). It's not an official camping spot... so don't tell! The sunset was fantastic and the clouds were really interesting. It's amazing how much the light can change in colour and intesity so rapidly from the mountains – I absolutely love it! Then the stars came out and took our breath away. Then quickly after the fog rolled in and the temperature plummeted to probably -20, so off to bed. The plan was to get up early and hike to the lake for sunrise, but the fog won the battle in the morning and to be honest... so did the sleeping bag!