This past weekend myself (Troy) and four friends (Kyle, Tim, Alsi, Klyner) went on a snowshoe adventure into Garabaldi Lake between Squamish and Whistler. What a time, below is my account with tons of photo's and captions!
Friday 5:15 am--Wake up. Well that stings when you usually roll out of bed at 9am. I had to get up and at it to take care of a few finishing touches and fuel up for a long day. Kyle arrived, as he promised, at 6:07 am. Two more guys to pick up and away we go.
8:15 am-- Arrive at the trail head approx 30 km North of Squamish. The original plan was to be hiking by 8am. However, due to Klyner having to fix his hair, pack, snack packs, boots etc, we heard for the first time on the weekend his now famous line: 'hey guys I need a minute' And got on trail at 9 am haha. Planned hiking time approx 7 hours.
Alsi with Kyle's loaded truck
The famous Klyner snack packs
9:10 am-- First break, time to shed some clothes, rookie mistake! Its 2km to the trail head and 9km after that to Garabaldi Lake. Basically uphill the whole way. After reaching the trail head we got into the trees and meandered our way along for about an hour or so. Having done this 12 years ago with Tim we knew the dreaded switchbacks were ahead. You basically climb 800m of vertical on the switchbacks, nothing to laugh at with a 50lb pack on your back.
Kyle, good lookin' kid
The group
2:00 pm-- With the switchbacks (and a few 'need a minute's) behind us we crossed Barrier Lake and Lesser Garabaldi Lake. I decided to go up high on a ridge and ski down on my snowshoes haha did the old face plant in the snow and lost our water bottle full of Baileys!
Barrier Lake
3:30 pm-- Arrived at Garabaldi Lake! We still needed to hike 5km across it to Burton Hut. We chose our path and started, but about 30 min in I realized this wasn't going to happen today. Too much new snow had fallen and we had to break a brand new trail. If you've never done this, go try it. Hard Work!! We decided to head back to where we were and shack up in the Day Hut. Not as nice as the Burton Hut, but it would do.
5:30 pm-- Dinner. Kyle brought homemade ravioli from Commercial Drive wow! Klyner brought snacks pre and post dinner and as you can see below we had some hard bar to celebrate! Probably could have opened The Shack #2 (Tim's bar in Kits) we had so much booze. Late in the night, in the middle of our hearts game, we decided to stack 2 picnic tables on top of each other as heat rises and it was warmer near the roof. Brilliant!
The view across to where we headed the next day
Lesser Garabaldi with the crew crossing it
morning after with the table stack, missing Kyle and Alsi's unreal hanging tarp system to keep the heat in
ahhh we like to have a drink or two ok
Saturday 9am-- Up and at it, breakfast of oatmeal, eggs and chorizo provided by me and we packed up and headed out. Normally the trip across takes 1.5 hours, breaking trail with everyone taking turns at the front took us just under 3 hours. My personal goal was 100 steps each time, however, I got competitive with Alsi who was killing it (while very hungover, impressive!) and put in some 500 step pulls. I was the first to see Burton Hut-- wow did it look good.
5pm-- dinner of Tim's homemade chilli and toasted bread. Unreal after a day of breaking trail. Highlights of Burton Hut and the night: drinks, a marmot digging at our garbage, viewing the lake and surrounding glacier in the moonlight from Tim's snow bench, insulated hut, coleman stove, two sleeping lofts, Klyners snacks, Tim's ceaser's, and the ipod speakers we packed up. Basically had a nightclub situation minus the girls, probably the most important part!!
