Take a lap

Having spent my summer in the rockies of Colorado, I found that my fitness from the altitude training carried over even to mid October. With the rainy season coming to Vancouver, I thought it was time to get in one final epic day before winter.

A few hours on CalTopo and I had concocted a brutal day for myself. 50k and 4500m going up Panorama Ridge, all the way around Lake Garibaldi and back down Mount Price to the car. I had done a couple huge days like this at home this summer and thought I could get it done in a fairly reasonable amount of time. 

After several partners turned me down since it was Thanksgiving weekend, I left my house alone in Kerrisdale at 3am on Saturday (October 12). After some false starts (leaving microspikes at home) I made it to Rubble Creek around 4:45 and was starting up the switchbacks by 5. 

Grinding up the first 1600m, I made it to the top of Panorama Ridge in under 2.5 hours to catch the sunrise on Mount Garibaldi, Black Tusk and the Tantalus Range. For those who haven’t made the pilgrimage yet, it’s gorgeous and never gets old. Stopping for a short break at the top to eat, drink and take a million photos before leaving the trail and continuing on.

With my bag of peanut butter m&ms still in hand, I dropped 80m off the east side of Panorama and ran along the grassy ridge before climbing Gentian Peak. A much less busy summit, I took another short break and more photos before boot skiing the scree down to Gentian Pass.

It had snowed here in the alpine 3 days earlier and I had expected much more snow. Luckily it had almost entirely melted. Unluckily it had created some very slippery mossy streams that were covered in grass and very hard to see. I stepped in one of these and found myself sliding 10m down. When I stood up I found myself surrounded by 3 wolves who seemed very interested in what I taste like. 

Having grown up in Colorado where wolves were hunted to extinction, I have seen only 3 before this, spread out over several years. I pulled the bear spray out and started yelling like a hooligan. They slowed down and eventually left but not before coming within 20m of me.

Unfortunately I didn’t get a closer photo since I was a bit distracted, but they looked very healthy ahead of the winter. 

From here, I began the climb up Polemonium Ridge before gaining the summit.

Polemonium Ridge is more of a small bump on the way to the top of Castle Towers. Dropping again, I started the climb up to Castle Towers. Initially pretty clear, I saw what I thought was an obvious way up the ridge again and went for it without checking where the trail went. Admittedly this was pretty stupid and I ended up climbing wet class 3 slab that was exposed over the dying remains of the northern Sphinx Glacier. Moral of the story, follow the trail.

Once on the upper face, I made a few phone calls as I climbed snowy boulder fields. I found it rather unpleasant and by the time I was on top of the scrambling summit, I decided to call it and not push my luck on the snowy true summit. While Stephen’s Peak Bagging Journey might have called it easy, I didn’t want to push my luck and was already beginning to get tired. I took some photos and left.

Going the right way down to the Polemonium – Castle Towers col, I decided it was possible and easy to go down this moraine instead of climbing Polemonium again and going back to Gentian Pass. This ended up being a horrible choice. Running down the moraine to treeline was fun and dreamy. Then I got to treeline. The slopes all the way around Garibaldi are very steep. I followed a stream down for a while until it got steep and I thought I could do better in the trees. I was very wrong. Light bushwhacking became more and more intense until I was deep in the willows and spent 40 minutes on the 1km down to the Upper Garibaldi Lakes near the Sphinx Hut.

By the time I made it to the Sphinx Hut I was generally in a bad mood. I was tired from being in the alpine and hungry and the bushes made it impossible to eat. My shoes were soaked from walking in the lake and I was behind schedule.

I took another short break to eat and try to let my shoes dry. I was unsuccessful. Putting my wet shoes on again, I started up towards the Guard Glacier. At this point I was feeling quite hungry and moving slow. I ran out of water about halfway up and started looking for somewhere to refill off the glacier. I had managed to stay on the rock instead of on the glacier since I didn’t have crampons, but this meant I couldn’t find water flowing off the glacier. Instead I had to wait. From the Deception – Guard col, I took photos before moving to a stream for some water.

I was happy to drink untreated glacier water but I didn’t feel so good about the stream. The tablets I brought meant more waiting and I was quite thirsty. I descended and got to the Glaciology Huts. At this point I had 4000m of gain in my legs and another 500m to go. I pushed up towards The Table and finally was able to drink water. On the flat ridge up to The Table, I was able to see the rest of my route ahead of me.

The sun began to set as I came off The Table and the golden hour light on the peaks was incredible. A short descent off The Table into a meadow and I was able to see the sunset on the Tantalus Range.

Still thinking about my wolf interaction, I was dreading seeing a bear or other wildlife at this hour. Just as I was thinking this I saw a bear across the meadow. It was a black bear and we left each other alone so I wasn’t worried. I put the headlamp back on and slogged up the volcanic rock of Mount Price. I tagged the summit and began a horrible horrible descent on the “trail”. 

At this point I had spent 3 hours on trail that morning and another 10 hours off trail around the lake. The trail off Mount Price is poorly marked already and in the dark and my exhausted state it was nearly impossible to keep track of. I can’t tell how many times I got off and had to backtrack but it was far too many. 

Eventually I got back to the campground by the lake and took my last break.

Upon resuming, I discovered my watch had died as I was sitting by the lake. I couldn’t tell how much vertical I had left to lose or distance. After another slog down the switchbacks to the car I was finally done. 19.5 hours and 53k later I was finished. 

A pit stop at McDonald’s in Squamish for 2 Big Macs I quickly downed and made it home at 2 am, almost 24 hours after I had left. Truly an epic day.