Black Tusk Hiking Trail, Whistler, BC

sibylle from Silverthorne, Colorado writes:

Our favorite hike this summer was in Garibaldi Park up to Garibaldi Lake and then to the Black Tusk viewpoint. We awoke to clear blue skies and from camp, we could see Mt. Garibaldi for the first time in days. It was our last day in Canada, so I asked Tristan if he would like to hike near Garibaldi.
Tristan acquiesced and after packing, we headed north. A “hike” with Tristan, who at 17 recently competed in both track and cross-country, involves him hiking up at full speed and me occasionally jogging to keep up. When we looked at the signs, it said “Black Tusk, 14 KM”.
“Go faster,” he admonished me. “It’s 14 km to the Tusk viewpoint and probably another 10 to the top. That’s a 48-km round trip) almost 30 miles). It’ll take too long if you’re that slow!”
After looking at the map, he decided to climb the Tusk, despite leaving the parking lot at 12:45. I’d planned on a more leisurely hike to Garibaldi Lake, only 9 km (5.4 miles) with an 800-meter elevation gain (2,624 feet).
After 25 minutes, we reached a sign saying we’d gone 2.5 km.
“That’s 50 minutes for a 5 k!” he said. “That’s way too slow for 5 k!”
Never mind that we were supposedly hiking, not running uphill, nor that it was steep, and we’d already passed over 50 hikers, Tristan felt we should go faster.
We finally reached the lake in about two hours, we would leave us time to continue on to the Black Tusk. We took the small detour to hike down toward the campground at the lake and enjoy the view across to the peaks. As we left the lake, we briefly saw a loon between its dives under the water.
Then we headed up toward the Black Tusk Viewpoint.
Once we reached the lake in about two hours, Tristan decided to head for the Black Tusk viewpoint. Never mind that it was now close to 3 p.m., that we had not only another 5 km of trail to hike up but also 14 to get back, which left us with about 4 hours to do the next 19 km (almost 12 miles) and it gets dark before 8 p.m.

After the Tusk turnoff, the trail got really steep. We hiked above tree line along a streambed with gorgeous riparian wildflowers to sweeten the pain of almost running uphill. At least we weren’t at high altitude!

Once we reached the Tusk viewpoint, Tristan said,
“I want to climb that!”
Since it was 5 p.m. and we still had our 14 km-hike back out, or almost 9 miles in the next two hours, I declined his invitation to continue. Luckily he agreed, and we started downhill.
After a while, we concluded that hiking might not get us down before dark. It gets really dark under the dense tree canopy along the lower trail, where visibility and light were limited even during mid-day hours.
“It’s after 5,” I reminded him. “ It gets dark around 7:30, in less than two hours.”
“Yeah, you should start running,” he admonished me.
Well, there weren’t a lot of other options, so I began running back down the hill. Jogging all the less rocky and root0infested parts, and walking carefully on the others, we got back to the car at 7:10 p.m., just in time to drive back to Squamish, take down our tent and cook in the dark, and had back home early the next morning.

See my blog,
http://funclimbsaroundtheworld.com

Posted: September 17, 2008 08:23:31 AM PST

William from Vancouver writes:

Love this hike

Posted: October 9, 2007 07:18:14 PM PST

HikerBoy from Vancouver writes:

Make sure if you're camping on a long weekend to get to the Garibaldi Lake campsite early. The spots are taken quickly and both Garibaldi Lake and Taylor Meadows campsites tend to fill up on during the busy summer months.

Posted: October 7, 2007 04:44:24 PM PST

Mike from Burnaby writes:

Black Tusk was an extremely challenging hike, especially making sure we made it back before it got dark. However, the views were amazing and we thankfully did it on a sunny, clear day.

I tried to do it one other time the year before but the snow level was too low and we didn't make it very far up the trail. Next time, I think we'll camp near Garibaldi Lake and take a day or so to do Black Tusk and Panorama Ridge.

Posted: October 7, 2007 03:33:49 PM PST