Garibaldi Park, May 14,15th 1999

 

Another weekend with Gambrelli and Damion. Originally we intended to do the Garibaldi Neve Traverse, but our 5am alpine start in Vancouver only resulted in an 11am trailhead departure, for various reasons. Slow getting up, then I realized I forgot my skins, solved that problem, then when we got to Squamish, the Klahanee diner was closed, which meant eating at the White Spot (what a name!), which was slow, then the drive up to the trailhead, which is slow, then we were running out of gas, then back into town to gas up, then back up to the trailhead. whew!

We slogged in the 11km to the Elfin Lakes hut through soggy snow, under increasingly sunny skies.

 

The view west from the Elfin shelter at sunset:

That night we were nine staying at the shelter, with a bunch more arriving in the middle of the night. Our plan was to get up at 3am, check out the snow conditions/weather, and see if we should attempt Garibaldi from here. Hopefully, the snow would freeze hard overnight.

3am came. It was overcast, and the snow was still slushy, with a thin crust. Back to bed. Up at 8 or 9 or whatever.

Un moment magique avec le Poudding Girl!

 

The weather stayed weird. Sunny, in between big puffy whiteout clouds. G headed back to the trailhead, while Damion and I took a quick tour up to the Gargoyles/Columnar Pk col. The skiing was actually pretty descent, but we didn't travel to little Diamond Head, our original goal, because of poor visibility.

Atwell peak (one of Garibaldi's three summits) poking through the clouds:

Atwell a few minutes later. These might actually have been cool photos if they weren't so washed out. This high quality film is Kodachrome 64. Couldn't be the photographers fault!

 

Getting ready to head back. Atwell and Garibaldi in the distance. To get inside the Elfin shelter, you had to walk down several feet, to get to the second floor entrance! Yup, in that seemingly little hut, are bunks for 34 people, and a huge cooking/living room area. The outhouse, a hundred yards away, was accessed through an underground tunnel in the snow. As you might imagine, this prevented ventilation of any sort.

Somewhere on the way back, looking down into the valley of the Squamish river. Tantalus Range in the background on the right.

 

The 11km slog back to the truck was made more entertaining by the presence of several groups of unprepared people. The most entertaining were the air cadets... we skied by 2 groups of about 10 of them, and their chaperones (all wearing strange round potato-masher snowhoes),  near the trailhead. Each group was hauling one sled. None of them were wearing backpacks. Instead, all 10 people's gear was piled onto each sled. This resulted in a load about 7 feet high, on a sled about 2 feet wide. I watched them as I skied by, and it was all they could do to keep it the sled from tipping over, let alone being able to actually pull it uphill! I asked the second group if they were headed to the Elfin Lakes hut, and they said yes. 2 minutes of skiing later, and I was at the trailhead. Once there, I learned that the air cadets had left the trailhead 3 hours before! Hmm... 2 minutes vs. 3 hours. We guessed that they'd probably reach the hut (11km away) in about a month.

Back at the truck, in the sunshine, I remembered we had beer... I opened the door, and hot air flowed out. Oh well, warm beer is better than no beer. I located the six pack, which was under a blue foamie, and lo and behold... it was cold, like it had just come from the refrigerator! So we all hopped in the back of the truck and sat there drinking cold beer and relaxing in the hot sun for an hour.... ahhhhh......

 

Horseplay!