Winter hike to Garibaldi Lake in Whistler, BC

After weeks spent overindulging on sweet, sweet chocolate, an uncomfortable, but very necessary thought occurred: it was high time to get crushed by a trail. Time to get back into hiking shape for the slow and glorious days of Alpine August. Time to push hard, and not be able to get out of bed the next morning without painful reminders of the previous day’s conquest. Time to get up at 5am, rendezvous with a sleepy and subdued team, make a coffee stop, gear up at a trailhead, and go. Time to wearily clink celebratory glasses in victory at whatever brewery you and your sorry friends managed to drag your wrecked selves to post-crush. Time for that special brand of suffering that I keep being told I enjoy. They just don’t understand the price that we pay for bluebird days in the glory that we call our backyard.

This weekend’s mission: a winter trek to Garibaldi Lake near Whistler, BC. What is normally a packed summer outing becomes a calm and quiet winter oasis in January, and rightly so. While the summer route from the Rubble Creek Rd trailhead offers a steady series of switchbacks, it can be clipped off at a good pace for those in decent shape. The winter, however, slowed this trail down considerably, and made for a tiring re-entry to long days on the trail.

The first obstacle was the road. While I understood that Rubble Creek Rd was usually impassable in the winter, I had read online that it may have been recently plowed due to some work being conducted in the area, so I had high hopes of driving even part way up the road before having to ditch the car. These hopes were quickly dashed, however, as we and a dozen other vehicles had to leave our car at the very bottom and hoof it up the 2 km road. I noted that the park had put up a barricade across the road, preventing even 4x4s with chains from cutting off the extra distance. Made for a good warm up at least! When the trail started in earnest, we had already removed some layers.

While the snow was pretty thin at the bottom of the trail beneath the tress, we soon added a bit of extra traction in the form of micro-spikes and snowshoes. The snow became thicker as we trudged up the switchbacks, but as the most recent snowfall was several days behind us, and as the trail sees fairly regular traffic, snowshoes were never really required for this trail; even near the lake where the powder was thick and high, a deep trench had already been packed down for us. While breaking fresh trail is a rare treat in Vancouver, it was probably a good thing we didn’t have to endure the extra work.

We took a short photo break at the viewpoint. Here, we said hi to some other hikers who had spent the night. We also said hi to number of whiskey jacks.

Shortly after the viewpoint, we came to the first turnoff, marked by a large signpost with a park map. The right trail (which we took) leads past Barrier Lake, and then traverses through rolling terrain to the campsites at the edge of Garibaldi Lake. Fortunately, the majority of the elevation gain was behind us at that point. The left turnoff takes you through Taylor Meadows, and on to Black Tusk and Panorama Ridge (insanely epic hikes).

I was absolutely starving during the last few kilometers of the hike, and was quite relieved when we emerged from the trees at the edge of the lake. We were treated to a wide expanse of sun-drenched, snowy wonderland.

Part of my motivation for this trip was some reconnaissance: in preparation for a future adventure, I wanted to see if the lake was frozen yet. However, the only tracks I saw stretching across the lake were those of a hare, and I was certainly not about to step onto the questionable ice as a test, so my mission remained inconclusive.

We broke for lunch at the summer campsite, which provides surprisingly nice facilities. There is a shelter (unheated), outhouses (very clean and well-stocked), and even a bear tree for hanging food.

After eating an unreasonable amount of food (it was not just me that was starving), we decided to begin the descent. We were aiming to be off the trail before dark, and long trails plus short winter days make for fast feet. The descent was fast, and involved much less heavy breathing that the ascent, making conversation plentiful.

As we counted down the kilometers, the aches and pains started to make themselves felt. We were quite happy to see the end of the trail, and even more relieved after pushing through the logging road and finally seeing the car around a bend in the road. While we joked about not being able to get out of the car, let me tell you, we were quite a pathetic sight as we stumbled around Squamish for a bite to eat in celebration of the day’s adventure. I wanted a crushing, and it was delivered. I’ll call this a victory.

Trail Stats

This trip was completed in January 2019. The trail to Garibaldi Lake (ending at the lakeside campsite, and including a total of 4 km on the road before the trailhead) was 25 km (15.5 miles). We clocked in at 7 hours and 45 minutes, including a decent lunch break and a short break at the lookout. The elevation gain was about 1150 m (3770 feet).

For info on a related trail – Burton Hut in Sphinx Bay across Garibaldi Lake – check out my post The Last Push.

How do you get back in shape after you’ve been out of the game? What’s your favourite workout trail? Tell me in the comments below!