Girlz Trip to Garibaldi

Nearing the end of the summer, I organized an all girls trip to Garibaldi Park (Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh land) with some friends. Some bailed, others were busy. But the final crew to go was Lucy Luo, Sahar Mavali, Georgia Carswell, Helena Sverak, Mika Yasutake, Kaylie Robinson, Mary MacGowan, Sean Xu, and myself, Melissa Bernstein.

We met Saturday morning at the Rubble Creek trailhead with smiles and bellies full of baked goods and coffee. We hiked up to Taylor Meadows, dropped our bags, hung out up our food, and headed off towards Panorama Ridge, the main objective of day 1. We had great views the whole way and got to know each other better (well I knew everyone of course but you get the idea). Except Kaylie. Kaylie wanted to take a nap at camp and then trail run and catch up. She said her nap was good and the trail run was “incredible”or “glorious” or some other illustrative adjective. She caught up quickly.

At the summit, we took some obligatory photos and I spoke with another hiker who had brought a full on lawn chain to the Panorama Ridge viewpoint. I don’t get why people think “glamping” in Garibaldi is a good idea – its not car camping. Oh well.

After our photos, we descended down back towards camp, making sure to take in the views and understand the scale of our objective for day 2, Black Tusk! Some brave souls, namely Kaylie and Mary, took a dip in Black Tusk Lake.

The evening was quaint. Some of us cooked outside, others in the warming shelter. Lucy shared delicious instant noodles and we almost saw another camper’s stove catch on fire – priming a stove is scary! I slept outside #cowgirlcamping and was pretty cozy. The stars were lovely.

We woke up on the second day a little sore but overall excited to do something none of us had done before – summit Black Tusk! We had high spirits as we hiked up above Garibaldi Lake.

 

At the base of the chute, Kaylie went over safety – mainly keep your helmets on and watch out for falling rock. We decided an order, starting with Kaylie as she has the most climbing experience and confidence. The energy was electric as we encouraged each other up the class 3 scrambling. It was more exposed and loose than the majority of us had climbed before. It felt like we were encouraging each other more than we individually felt in confidence. That’s the power of group dynamics <3

 

Then we befriended two hikers with a drone. At first, I really didn’t want them to fly their annoying mechanical bird around, but then they offered to take photos of us and so we couldn’t say no.

We hung out/procrastinated going down.

Then we went down.

And down…

On the scree on the way down, we bumped into Isaac’s Castle Towers crew. See his trip report here. He talks more about beta than I’m willing to write. If you want beta on Black Tusk, check out his report.

We went down some more.

And then down some more. We stopped to grab our overnight packs at Taylor Meadow and cruised down the switchbacks. I hate the switchbacks. Eventually they ended, I got to use the outhouses at the parking lot, and all was well.

We said our goodbyes to the other car group, got food somewhere on the way back to town, and slept well.

I must say, writing a trip report 2.5 months after going on a trip is not ideal. The physical exhaustion isn’t there anymore (but the burnout from school is, am i right?) and the memory has faded. Your bag is (hopefully) unpacked and your heart is full. Pictures help remember the lovely trip.

Organizing and going on this girls trip with a bunch of my badass femm friends was a highlight of my summer. I only wish more friends could’ve come (shout out to Settare <3) and the weather was better. Jk (about the weather part only – it was perfect).

 

Till next time,

Melissa