Panorama Ridge - July 2 2022
Coast Mountains, Squamish, British Columbia
2133m
After tackling Brandywine Mountain yesterday, I was still rearing to not waste the weekend. I booked a climbing course on Sunday to hopefully ready myself for some Rockies shenanigans during my upcoming trip there in mid-July, but needed something I figured would be a good use of the long weekend, but also not too rough should I not have fared so well when I woke up the next day. So at the same time (earlier in the week), I booked a spot at Rubble Creek in Garibaldi, figuring I could go as far as I wanted toward the lake in the worst case, and have lots of options should I feel good. I set my eyes on Panorama Ridge as an ideal goal for the day since I've seen that the views are way better with snow on the mountains, and I also knew from some trip reports that the trail was boot-packable with spikes. Hence, when I woke up unscathed, I showered, got ready, and headed out.
I did sleep in a bit due to the night before, so I got started just before 9am. I don't have much in the way of pictures for the first leg of the journey, though. I lost in InReach on the trail yesterday and was thinking I might need to go and retrieve it after, and also generally didn't want to be up too late in the soft snow since I didn't have spikes, and instead brought snowshoes as backup traction, which I knew wasn't ideal. Plus since Garibaldi is pretty well-known and photographed, I figured it'd be fine to skip the pics and just truck up as fast as I could.
So, I set out with high hopes, and got to work (and sweat) immediately. I got to the Taylor Meadows junction in just over an hour and fifteen minutes, which incidentally was the first section of snow on the trail. However, it was very patchy and inconsistent until past the Taylor Meadows Campground, where it finally got more or less continuous. I got to that point in about an hour and forty minutes. I was starting to feel the fatigue a good amount at this point, but I ran into another hiker who I barely managed to pass here who kept me going for a bit longer😅. I finally took my first break 2 and a half hours in, about 50 vertical metres above the Black Tusk/Panorama junction (1700m), where I gave up and got some water.
It was here I checked my bag and realized "oh crap, I don't have lunch, it's on the counter at home", and had to grapple with the idea of an almost 30km hike on 2 granola bars and a little energy gel pack. But I was feeling tired but not down at this point, so I didn't turn back. I did, however, join a group who was having some navigation issues and offered me a piece of jerky for helping em out, which was a great deal for me, any calories were welcome.
From here, we plodded along toward and past the trio of Helm/Tusk/Mimulus lakes, and turned the corner toward the summit area. This was a lot of slowly increasing elevation and walking along a packed snow trail, with occasional breaks coming across a snow-less area around the base of a tree cluster.
We separated about 4 hours in, or a bit before 1:00. I was getting gassed at this point, and making fairly slow progress in this steeper section. My compatriots, however, didn't summit a mountain the previous day and only came from camp, so they were well-prepared to continue up with speed. I tried to keep up, as I'm a bit competitive and never like watching people pass me, but with the combination of little sleep, tired body, and low calories, I just couldn't do it.
From there I made slow but steady progress, gaining 150m to the false summit in about half an hour. To this point my lack of spikes and extra pack weight of snowshoes that were useless didn't hurt me too much, but going up I had to pick my steps a bit more precisely to avoid slipping, as the slope was steeper and the snow wasn't getting crustier. But I still managed to avoid kick-stepping, so it wasn't too slow in the grand scheme of things, and I summited in almost exactly 4.5 hours. Not as fast as I'd hoped, but not bad given my circumstances.
I count this as my summit time since I stayed there for a while before making the true summit, but that was about a 5 minute walk. Here, I scarfed down my remaining granola bar and energy gel, added some electrolytes to my water, and found some saintly campers who gave me a clif bar which was probably what made the upcoming descent feasible in the time it took, massive thanks and shoutout to them. I stayed up there for about 50 minutes, as there was a ton of people, and I could actually socialize a bit, which I didn't for most of the hike. Plus, well, I was tired.
The descent was a 50/50 mix of walking and glissading down the north/south section. Pretty fun, though the greater number and lesser experience of many city-folk who came for the long weekend meant nobody had axes, some took some rather sketchy lines leading toward the void, and some just decided to stop and sit in the butt-tracks that had been carved out. But it was still fun and efficient, so I enjoyed the slides (especially since I brought rain pants and waterproof gloves).
Once that ended, I walked at a decent clip back to the junction where the trail splits back to Taylor Meadows or to the Lake, where I stopped for some water and to take a picture before heading to the Lake for some variety.
From there, the snow was continuous until the tight switchbacks descending to the lake started, where it got quite patchy and there was a good few totally dry patches. Thankfully, now that I was on the way down, and had some energy, I was back to passing people, which was a good ego-boost😂. Not too long before the lake trails merge, I hit the Parnasus Creek crossing, which with the afternoon melt, was more of a log-tightrope.
About 15 more minutes got me down to the bridge across Taylor Creek, which offered some nice rushing water and a glimpse of the lower lake. 10 more beyond that got me to the head of Barrier lake, where I got a full-on view.
From here, it's a practically snowless walk down the fairly mundane lake trail, so I didn't do much for the next 50 minutes other than just power my way down with intent. Near the beginning of the trail, there's a set of 3 creek crossings which together all drain into Rubble Creek. I stopped at the first and worst of these to grab a picture of the conditions, and that was my last stop of the trip before the parking lot. It was definitely worse than the morning, where the bridge was only barely underwater.
Once I got to the car, it was basically exactly 8.5 hours after I started, I managed the summit despite the previous day and my lack of lunch, my car still had intact windows and a catalytic converter, and it turned out someone found my inreach and wants to return it, so I was pretty happy. I felt pretty good physically after Brandywine on Friday, but after this one on top of that, my body definitely noticed to say the least. Hopefully it recovers by Friday because if all goes according to plan, Mt Garibaldi should be falling to us... Definitely recommend doing this in winter or shoulder season though, as the views are just so much nicer with snow still on the mountains.