Snow in July: Backpacking Panorama Ridge and Garibaldi Lake
Trip at a Glance
| Distance | 20 mi (32 km) |
| Elevation Gain | 5,300 feet (1,615 meters) |
| Elevation Range | 1,912 - 6,998 feet (583 - 2,133 meters) |
| Length | 2 days |
| Trailhead | Rubble Creek |
| Backcountry Campground | Garibaldi Lake or Taylor Meadows (reserve on camping.bcparks.ca) |
| Highlights | Garibaldi Lake, Panorama Ridge, Black Tusk, Taylor Meadows |
| Type | Out-and-back |
| Trip Date | Jul 8-9, 2022 |
You might have seen images of the brilliantly turquoise Garibaldi Lake taken from so high up they could be aerial shots. These iconic photos are from the very popular Panorama Ridge hike in Garibaldi Provincial Park. As the name suggests, the top offers sweeping views of the surrounding area including Black Tusk, Helm Creek, and Garibaldi Lake rimmed by impressive mountains.
These views don’t come easily though. It is a 20 mile/32 km round-trip hike with 5,300 feet/1.6k meters of elevation gain and takes 9-10 hours to complete. While some tackle the ambitious hike in a day, others do it as an overnight trip by camping at Garibaldi Lake or Taylor Meadows. NO camping is permitted outside of these 2 backcountry campgrounds (even if you see others posting about breaking the rules online). Camping is allowed solely on designated tent pads.
Garibaldi Lake and Panorama Ridge have been on my bucket-list for longer than I can remember. I remember when I first found out about it, I thought it was way too strenuous for me to ever be able to complete it. And I was surprised that such a popular hike was not an easy one! Fast-forward to the present, I now have backpacking in my skillset and am in much better physical shape than I used to be. So when I was looking into July 4th trip options around the Vancouver area, this trip was high on my list. I did this trip back-to-back with Wedgemount Lake which is also in Garibaldi Provincial Park. Click to read my Wedgemount Lake trip report.
Permits
The boom in popularity for Garibaldi Provincial Park has led to the implementation of a quota system. There are 2 kinds of permits to be aware of: day-use passes and campground reservations.
Day-use passes are required during the summer season for the Rubble Creek trailhead where the Garibaldi Lake trail begins. Day-use passes are reservable 2 days in advance on reserve.bcparks.ca/dayuse.
Campground reservations are required year-round for backcountry campgrounds like Taylor Meadows and Garibaldi Lake. Reservations are available 4 months in advance of your start date. For more popular dates like weekends and holidays, it is best to reserve them right when reservations open at 7 AM PT on camping.bcparks.ca. You do not need a day pass if you have a campground reservation.
We stayed at Garibaldi Lake campground. It’s the more popular campground due to its scenic, lakeside location, and would be my pick if both options were available. Taylor Meadows campground kind of acts as the overflow campground for those visiting Garibaldi Lake, but it tends to be quieter and is situated more directly on the route to Panorama Ridge, which is a nice plus.
The campgrounds share many of the same amenities like a cooking shelter, tent pads, bear-proof food storage options, and pit toilets.
Itinerary
Day 1: Garibaldi Lake + Panorama Ridge: 14.1 mi/5300’ gain
Trailhead to Garibaldi Lake Campground. 5.6 mi/+3000’ gain
Garibaldi Lake to Panorama Ridge (return): 8.5 mi/+2300’ gain
Day 2: Garibaldi Lake Campground to Trailhead. 5.6 mi/0’ gain
Garibaldi Lake is a beautiful destination in itself, but the hike to Panorama Ridge is definitely worth the extra effort! If you are staying the night at Garibaldi Lake or Taylor Meadows, you can leave most of your gear at camp so you can tackle Panorama Ridge with just a day pack.
Hiking to Panorama Ridge can be done on day 1 or 2. We chose day 1 so that our second day would be very leisurely, but there is no advantage to either choice. I would recommend deciding based on the weather conditions.
Useful Links
The trail begins at the Rubble Creek trailhead, which is around 2 hours north of Vancouver and a 30 minute drive from Whistler, BC. Since we finished our Wedgemount Lake trip the day before and were doing Garibaldi Lake the next day, staying in Whistler made the most sense. Then it was just a short drive to get to the Rubble Creek trailhead in the morning. Our permits were checked by rangers stationed next to the road before the parking lot. The parking lot was pretty empty when we got there, but it was a weekday with rain in the forecast.
From the trailhead, it was a steady climb to Garibaldi Lake over the next 5 and a half miles. My legs were still sore having just finished our Wedgemount Lake trip the day before. With every step I was thankful for the Garibaldi Lake trail being nothing like Wedgemount's. The trail was exquisitely well-maintained. The switchbacks were moderate, and the trail was wide and uniform. I could just zone out and swing my legs forward as if I were walking on an incline treadmill.
We hiked through a thick fog that evoked mystical forest vibes, and it was beautiful. Before long, the rain started coming down. I'm from California, and it rarely rains during backpacking season. Because of that, I haven't had many opportunites to hone my rain gear system. On this trip, 3 of us were trying out ponchos (with matching neon colors of course).
Poncho gang group photo
I mostly chose a poncho so that it could double as a rain-cover for my not-waterproof backpack. It technically did its job, but at the same time it did a terrible job of covering my forearms and hands and legs. I had a foam pad strapped to the top of my backpack and it made my poncho a lot shorter on me than it should have been. We speed-walked through these miles as there were not much views to be had through the trees and fog.
By the time we got to Garibaldi Lake around noon, my limbs were cold and wet, but our timing was perfect. Just as the forecast had predicted, the rain stopped and the visibly improved significantly. The lake water was still and clear.
Arriving at Garibaldi Lake. The trail continues along the lakeshore and ends at the campground.
Garibaldi Lake campground is huge with 50 campsites, but they are all in the trees so there isn't much to be picky about in terms of views. We quickly settled on 2 unoccupied tent pads right off the campground trail winding along the lake. They were near the shelter that faces Battleship Island (I think sites 23/24). One of the tent pads was still covered in snow, although it had been leveled by previous campers. After setting up our tents, we headed to the cooking shelter to eat lunch. The shelter is pretty barebones, but the comfort of having a table to eat at and a roof and walls to protect us from the elements cannot be overstated.
I stared out the window of the shelter at the clouds as we ate. The sky seemed to be getting brighter, and soon the clouds cracked to reveal blue sky. We chatted with some other campers around us for beta on Panorama Ridge. Since it was still pretty snowy up there, we were worried about being able to complete the hike. It turned out that this group had done the hike earlier that morning (while we had been hiking through the rain to Garibaldi Lake) and faced a rainy sufferfest. They ultimately turned back before the ridge.
That wasn't the report we were hoping to hear, but the weather looked like it would be on our side this afternoon. We headed out from the campground around 2:30 PM. Less than a mile of straightforward switchbacks later, the trail flattened out as it emerged from the trees into a meadow. Well not exactly a meadow right now, but I knew there was one underneath all the snow. Even though it made the hiking harder, I was excited to see so much snow. At least, until the sun came out from behind a cloud and I could barely open my eyes. Sunglasses would have been nice (I forgot mine).
One of the unnamed lakes next to the trail.
Snowy Taylor Meadows and Panorama Ridge disappearing in the clouds.
The snowpack was high enough that it reached the bottom of the Taylor Creek junction sign, maybe around 3 feet high. We reached the end of the meadow shortly after the junction, and this is when it began to be less fun. It didn't help that the weather was not looking promising. The on and off rain made it difficult to decide whether or not to keep our ponchos on.
We started traversing some mixed snow and dirt on the side of a hill that was quite steep at some points. Our route was a combination of trying to follow the official trail as closely as possible, but also trying to stay on the packed-down path (of which sometimes there were multiple choices) that formed over the winter hiking season. This led to lots of map-checking and some bushwhacking, and we quickly learned our flappy ponchos were not an asset here. Some phone photos below because this isn’t Instagram, this is reality…
There was one especially sketchy snow-bridge that looked a few days from collapsing. The sound of running water was loud, and we could see the exposed creek above and below the crossing point. There were a few holes at the crossing point as well. It didn't look like there was a better place to cross though, so we crossed one at a time.
The sketchy snow-bridge
Snow-covered Mimulus Lake to our right
Then began the grand finale push. Garibaldi Lake was on the other side of the ridge, so there were no teasers of the reward before the top. But we did have sweeping views behind us of Black Tusk and Helm Creek winding down the valley. The snow and the gray clouds overhead created a minimal, monochromatic palette.
The rain held off as I trudged upwards. All I could see in front of me were the snowy boot tracks up this seemingly endless hill. Nick was a smaller and smaller dot ahead of me and then he disappeared. It turns out it was a false summit, but at this point I was more exhilarated than disappointed. My anticipation of the view and handfuls of sour gummy tape carried me upwards in a second wind.
Looking back at the dark pointy tip of Black Tusk, and Black Tusk Lake beneath it, which we passed earlier.
The visibility got worse and worse near the top and I started entering the bottom of the cloud layer. Sometimes you hike to a summit for the views and you don't see any views. I really hoped this was not one of those times. I crested the top of the ridge and…it was pretty cloudy.
I squinted at the fog as we waited at the top for our remaining 2 friends. The longer I stared, willing the clouds to disperse, the more I was sure they were thinning. Then over the next few minutes, the veil of mist dropped away. Suddenly the scene came into focus. I've seen countless photos from Panorama Ridge, but it was impossible to grasp the scale of the scene until I was standing there in person. The lake is so wide that it spread into the edges of my vision. The water was dark blue without the sun lighting up its usually bright turquoise waters.
Guard Mountain
Panorama Ridge is across the lake from Garibaldi Lake campground so you get a different perspective on the mountains. On the left, you can now see the very table-like Table Mountain that was hiding behind Mount Price. Mount Garibaldi towers behind it but is shrouded by clouds.
Sphinx Bay. If you look really hard, you can see the tiny Burton Hut on the left of the mouth where the bay feeds into Garibaldi Lake. The hut doesn’t have a trail to it, but is rather accessed by packraft, or by foot in the winter when you can walk across the frozen lake.
Not a panorama. This is as wide as my 20mm lens could capture!
The fog drifted in and out while we enjoyed the views from the summit. We sat and ate snacks when the fog blew in, and jumped to action taking photos when the views rematerialized. After 25 minutes of this, we had to say goodbye to Panorama Ridge. It was around 6:30 pm, and it had taken 3.5 hours to hike up from Garibaldi Lake. The summer days were long and sunset was not until 9 pm, but we were still cutting it kind of close.
Fortunately, we quickly discovered that there was a much faster way down. On the steeper sections, glissade tracks had been carved by the butts of many hikers before us. The snow was mushy, but a running start got me sliding just fine. Going down these glissade tracks was pure joy. I couldn't stop laughing hysterically on my way down each one. My pants got wet but it was worth it.
Views on the way down
Helm Creek and Helm Lake
Mountains in the distance peeked through the clouds occasionally.
The snow is pink from algae blooms.
We got back to Garibaldi Lake campground around 9 PM, a whole hour faster than it had taken us on the uphill. After crossing the bridge and rounding the bend towards the campground, I audibly gasped, and I'm pretty sure some campers sitting nearby gave me the sideye. I had expected no sunset, but instead I got golden light hitting the wall of peaks across from Garibaldi Lake. I pulled my camera out so fast.
Mount Price
Sphinx Glacier
Battleship Island is accessible via the (sometimes) exposed strip of rock on its left, extending from the shore.
I was so occupied by my photo-taking that I didn't get to making and eating my dinner until 10 PM after the light fully disappeared. My lower body ached from the 10 hours that we spent on the trail that day, but I felt so fulfilled. It was pretty late by the time I finished dinner, so I went straight to bed. I knocked out and didn’t wake up even once through the night thanks to the perfectly flat, wooden tent pads and complete physical exhaustion.
I awoke to some pretty unique lighting. It was overcast but still plenty bright. The clouds covered the sky and acted like a giant diffuser for the sun, casting a soft glow across the landscape.
We enjoyed a slow morning by the lake, soaking in the views for the last time. After we packed up, we had only a couple hours of easy downhill to go. Even before we got to the trailhead, it felt like we had already returned back to civilization. It was Saturday, and we passed group after group of day hikers headed for the lake. The trailhead parking lot was packed with cars and people, in stark contrast to when we had arrived the day before.
The early-season conditions gave us a very different version of Garibaldi Lake and Panorama Ridge than the usual photos found online, but it was beautiful nonetheless. I guess I technically crossed this hike off my bucket-list, but I feel the need to come back and experience this hike in snow-free conditions. I feel like it will be unrecognizable!
