Garibaldi Lake

I've always wanted to hike into Garibaldi Lake so what better time to do it than in January? Looking back, maybe it would have been a more enjoyable trip in the summer...or at least if all went smooth. But what's life without a little adventure, right? Wrong!

Saturday morning we hit the road and headed north. The main road up to the parking lot isn't plowed in the winter and they recommend not attempting it. For good reason. Long story short, some city guys decided they would attempt the road in their SUV's and summer tires. Epic fail. We had to try and move aside so they could back down around us. We got stuck (WITH winter tires) and spent the next hour digging the truck out. We ended up parking at the bottom of the road and hiking an extra 2km up the road just to get to the trail head!

Okay, so now we're on the trail!I forgot how relentless the uphill grind is on this trail! I hiked up to Black Tusk a few summers ago and forgot about those wonderful, never ending switchbacks! I was with good company so it didn't matter, it was going to be a good trip! That's when those oh-too-familiar hot spots start on my feet. "I can tough it out"...famous last words! In all the chaos of digging the truck out, I forgot my duck tape. In the truck. I never leave home without this magical wonder for my feet. Tape them up and you will never get a blister!

After what seemed like a lifetime, we finally started our descent to the lake. My feet were raw, we were cold, we were hungry and we just wanted food. We hiked past the first cooking shelter and found a nice spot just outside the second shelter where we set up camp. The nice thing about winter camping is that you don't have to make reservations and you can set up your tent pretty much anywhere since everything is under layers and layers of snow!

We dug our way into the cooking shelter (yes, the snow was DEEP!) and unpacked our bags to get out our food! I was looking forward to our homemade, dehydrated chili and some hot chocolate...but it's hard to light your stove when you only have stormproof matches...and no striker! Yes. No striker. Wow, bad luck, stroke #2. Luckily, we were able to borrow a striker from a fellow hiker that was camped near us!

By this point we were both exhausted and had no interest in doing anything except go to bed. After dinner, we crawled into our sleeping bags and breathed a big sigh of relief. It was so peaceful and quiet...after all it was 6:30pm. Wow, the earliest I've ever gone to bed in my adult life!

The next morning, we met a couple of amazing older gentleman and had breakfast in the shelter with them while packing up to leave. I was dreading putting my boots back on, as I had no skin left on my heels. During our random conversation, the story came up about the bad luck we had encountered on the way up and how I forgot my duck tape and was going to pay the price on the hike down. One of the gentlemen offered me his moleskin. He was my hero that day!

As we hiked back out, we both decided that we didn't care if we hike back to the lake during the summer or not! The jury is still out on that, so we shall see when summer rolls around!