provincial parks

Oh Garibaldi

There are no shortcuts to any place worth going

The thought ran in my mind on the seemingly endless rocky ascent. In the distance, I spied the summit, people like ants. The gentle sun sprayed warmth, while the draft from a nearby glacier spattered cool air. The trail disappeared into a rockfall, with nary a cairn to mark the way up.

It became steeper near what I thought was the end, but just like every black cloud has a silver lining, every steep ascent ends with remarkable views, like this one of Garibaldi Lake just outside Whistler.

Garibaldi Provincial Park

BC Canada

Standing Guard

It was unmistakeable: the characteristic lines formed by boulders being dragged against their will on the hard strata below me. The glacier must have most-certainly flown over this outcropping years ago. And I looked around for more pieces of evidence, the glacial moraine, the barren scree, the U-shaped valley, and it was clear that the tiny Wedgemount glacier has most certainly retreated atleast a mile in the last century.

I turned around, and the vast glacial basin stretched in front of me, dominated by the teal blue Wedgemount lake. Once upon a time, the glacier must have lapped its shores, but all that remains now is the dry rocky moraine left behind by the glacier on its retreat upslope. The line between the vegetation-less slippery scree and the green treeline that extended a mile along the lake traced the original highline of the glacier. Now it is but a shadow of its former self.

Wedgemount glacier still survives, and still remains one of the more easily accessible glaciers of southern Vancouver, but at it's current pace of retreat thanks to global warming, not for long; it's dying embers will tell a story of its glorious past in the glorious mountains of the coastal range, and preserved only in memories and in photographs.

A lone inuksuk stood guard that day over the basin, possibly erected as a memory of Wedgemount's storied history.

Garibaldi Provincial Park
BC Canada

 

Lost in the Rockies

The trail was long and hard. It wound its way through the dense coniferous forest, rising with slow certainty towards an as of yet unseen vista. I was laboring heaving with the weight of my camera gear, wondering how much further the destination was…

The trail was long and hard. It wound its way through the dense coniferous forest, rising with slow certainty towards an as of yet unseen vista. I was laboring heaving with the weight of my camera gear, wondering how much further the destination was. And after more than an hour of uphill slow, the vegetation thinned out, and the views expanded. I turned around, and the entire vista of Maligne Lake expanded in front of me.

There is perhaps nothing more exhilerating that seeing the endless cascades of the snow-capped mountains rising up from a velvety green forest floor. And I have been fortunate in being able to visit and pay homage to the grandeur of the Canadian Rockies, perhaps the most beautiful of them all.

It was as though the stereotypical mountain landscapes that we drew as a kid came to life, except it was far more majestic and awe-inspiring. Bare sedimentary rock faces were alternately in light and shadow as the clouds cast dappled light on the rugged landscape, while towering peaks with glacial remnants shone in pearly white. Maligne Lake slowly tapered off in the distance towards its source, lost in the multitude of canyons.

As I watched this scene slowly transpiring, an old quote from John Muir popped in my head: "We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us."

Maligne Lake
AB Canada

You can find more of my photography in my 2018 calendar, available here: https://goo.gl/Nd7p9G. All proceeds go to NRDC and WildAid, two non-profits whose missions I wholly support.