Hi,

I'll be visiting Vancouver for a few days for a wedding and some stuff, and hoping to squeeze in a day hike or short overnight. I've done a couple of the semi-urban North Shore hikes but thinking maybe something a little farther out/more wildernessy this time, to take full advantage of being out west. Any suggestions? To give a sense of our abilities, we've hiked to Berg Lake (one way) in one day but wouldn't stretch a day much further than that.

Oh and for bonus points... the hike is the only thing we'd rent a car for during this trip out west, so if there are any good options that one can get to by bus or something I'd be interested to hear, though I don't expect that.

when are you here?

what' s awesome in july might be on fire in september etc.

Sorry - really meant to include that, somehow slipped. This will be in the first few days of July.

So, Garibaldi Lake.

Thanks Dru. Looked it up. Would it be worth going in as a day hike, or is it only worth going there if you're going to base camp at the lake and hike farther up?

It's very popular as a day hike an das an overnighter if doing the Tusk and Panorama Ridge although you can do both of those as day trips too. Depends if you want to camp or not.

It will still be snowy in early July but early flowers should be out in the snowfree meadows.

For less people come in from Cheakamus Lake and camp at Helm Creek.

Thanks!

Basically we're not bringing camping gear on our trip out west but have people there to borrow from. So day trips would be most convenient but we're prepared to camp if it makes the difference between a so-so route and an outstanding one.

Just wanted to loop back and say thanks for the guidance, we had an amazing hike on Thursday.

We opted for a day hike to keep it simple. We were originally talking about leaving Vancouver at 6 am to leave the option open of hiking all the way to either Black Tusk or Panorama Ridge, but the day before the hike we decided it was unrealistic (for a couple of flatlanders like us) to go that far in one day, so we delayed our start by an hour. Well, we started from Rubble Creek with a plan of hiking to the Black Tusk junction via Taylor Meadows, then doing a short part of the trail towards Panorama Ridge before turning back and returning via Garibaldi Lake. But "a short part" doesn't work very well on that trail, the farther you go the farther up it beckons you. So we found ourselves going all the way up to the ridge, then going back with a short detour into the Garibaldi Lake campground to see the view. If my calculations are right it was 31.4 km and the longest single-day hike I've done. Roughly 9:45 all in. Definitely worth the extra push. When I took off my socks back at the car I saw I had huge blisters on the outside edge of each big toe, somehow I hadn't felt them at all while hiking.

awesome, sometimes those are the best hikes. The only saving grace for the 30km is that half of it is fairly flat. But those switchbacks are killers... going up and down. Glad you had a good hike

Haha yeah, actually the one part of the hike where I really felt like I was dying was the last 6 km or so, going down the switchbacks after roughly the Barrier lookout. No other part of the ascent or descent was nearly as bad. Maybe just because that's how long it took for my legs to completely tire out, I dunno.

But anyway it's part of the reason going all the way made for far better value for effort, since so much of it was open country hiking on relatively level grades, whereas just hiking to the lake and back would mostly be grueling switchbacks through forest. Also, part of the reason we looped through Taylor Meadows was to see the flowers, but frankly I thought there were far better flowers between BT Junction and BT Lake than in the meadows. Maybe just a function of timing.