Garibaldi Provincial Park

British Columbia Provincial Park Of About 1,950 Square Kilometres In The Coast Mountains; Garibaldi Lake Is Dammed By A Lava Barrier From An Eruption Against Glacial Ice, And The Park Holds The Most Heavily Used Backcountry In The Province · Squamish, British Columbia

Garibaldi Lake is an impossible colour - a saturated turquoise that photographs look retouched - and the reason is geological. About nine thousand years ago lava from the Mount Price vents flowed against the edge of a retreating glacier and cooled into a wall of rock THE BARRIER, which now dams the valley and holds back a lake three hundred metres deep. Glacial flour suspended in the meltwater does the rest. The park around it covers roughly one thousand nine hundred and fifty square kilometres of the Coast Mountains between Squamish and Whistler, and includes BLACK TUSK, the eroded core of an old volcano standing as a black spire above the meadows, and the Panorama Ridge walk that most people have seen a photograph of without knowing where it is. IT IS THE MOST HEAVILY USED BACKCOUNTRY IN BRITISH COLUMBIA, which is why day-use passes have been required in summer and why the trailhead car parks fill before dawn on a fine weekend.

Sea-to-Sky Highway between Squamish and Whistler, Squamish, British Columbia, Canada

THE PARK IS OPEN YEAR-ROUND BUT THE TRAILS ARE A SUMMER PROPOSITION - snow lies on the high country well into July in most years and returns in October, and the Garibaldi Lake and Panorama Ridge routes are NOT REALISTIC WITHOUT SNOW TRAVEL SKILLS outside roughly late July to early October. FREE DAY-USE PASSES HAVE BEEN REQUIRED IN THE PEAK SUMMER SEASON, released online a couple of days ahead and going within minutes - CHECK BC PARKS BEFORE YOU DRIVE, because this has caught out an enormous number of people. BACKCOUNTRY CAMPING AT GARIBALDI LAKE AND TAYLOR MEADOWS IS RESERVED AND CHARGED and books out months ahead for summer weekends. THE TRAILHEAD CAR PARKS FILL BEFORE DAWN on fine weekends and vehicles are ticketed and towed from the highway shoulder.

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