Back to it

Two weekends ago Greta brought up the idea of climbing Black Tusk. Since the gang have seen it from pretty much every possible angle, we were all quite keen to do it. Unfortunately most people had plans already so this little adventure was postponed one week.

After a few emails back and forth during the week Greta, Colin, Lee, and myself decided that we’d have a “relaxed” weekend. Typically people approach Black Tusk from Garibaldi Lake via Rubble Creek (aka the boring switchback trail). Having been up and down the boring trail several times this past winter we decided to approach Black Tusk from the other side, via Helm Creek. The original plan was to summit Black Tusk on Saturday, check out Panorama Ridge on Sunday, and basically have a relaxed weekend. Just to give you an idea the distance we covered… from the parking lot to Black Tusk it’s about a 17 km (~10.5 miles) hike with ~1500m (<1 mile) elevation gain.

The hike in was more or less uneventful. Having not really exercised for the past 8 weeks due to my back my cardio had taken a step backward. The entire time I was playing catch up to the rest of the gang. However considering that Greta is training as a triathlete and wakes up at 5:30 every morning to train and I did pass a few parties along the trail I wasn’t THAT out of shape…

Black Tusk from a distance

We had to take off our boots and walk across a very cold river

Anyway, the weather started deteriorating as we got closer to Black Tusk. First the clouds rolled in, next it began quite windy and next thing you knew, it was snowing! It was snowing quite hard when we were at the Black Tusk ridge. Yes you heard it right, it snowed in June. Not able to see past ~50m we decided to bail and quickly found a campsite to set up tents.

Bail bail!

The snow/rain/hail did not stop for another 3 hours so we ended up cooking, eating, and hanging in the tent. The 2 person tent was quite crammed with 4 people in there (we had 2 tents but hung out in one). Eventually it stopped snowing, just about time for bed.

The next morning the sky was still covered by clouds. The weather forecast called for sunny weather but we were somewhat skeptical about that. We tried to dry out our gear and tried to warm ourselves up. Colin & Lee brought up some ridiculous amount of meat and proceeded to make THE breakfast of champions – bacon, sausages & beans. It sure didn’t sit in my stomach too well once we started hiking.

With view like this you wonder why I love going on these outdoor adventures

After about 2 hours of faffing around we eventually started hiking toward Black Tusk again. It was still cloudy but occasionally sun would peak out from the clouds. The scramble itself was quite sketchy – the chimney was still partially filled with snow, making the already difficult scramble much more challenging. Luckily everyone was experienced and we took our time ascending.

The Black Tusk chimney scramble (a bit to the left of this pic)

Greta ascending the snowy chimney (photo: Lee)

Greta climbing up

We ended up spending about 2 hours at the summit waiting for the weather to improve but it never did. Around 2 pm we decided we would start hiking down. The scrambling down was definitely scary. During one point of the down-climb I pulled out a rock the size of a basketball and almost lost my balance. We all took our time down-climbing one by one. When we got down to the ridge again we met two parties planning to climb the Tusk. I was quite amazed how unprepared these people were – most of them were wearing t-shirts & shorts and had no emergency clothing and a couple of them were wearing skate shoes! Considering the weather was quite unstable and the rocks were super lose I’d never scramble without a helmet and an extra set of warm clothing… but I guess some people are just not as prepared.

Da Tusk summit shot

We did bunch stupid poses at the summit

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It’s Tues so that means it’s time for Weekly Words Challenge again. The words this week were 6 and Lookup. Using pics from the weekend adventure…

Lookup
(Lee looking up to Black Tusk and saying goodbye)

Looking up to see Black Tusk in a distance

(Unfortunately I couldn’t find any pics that would represent 6…)

The “words” for next week are: Blue & Happy.