Russet Lake
I haven’t done much back packing in Garibaldi, so extended a trip to Whistler with a chance to hike in the back country.
I didn’t leave until around lunch time, so I took the chance to take the gondola up to the Roundhouse at Whistler. Then it’s a good opportunity to get lost in all the trails around the top of the mountain.
Once you’ve got out of that it gradually gets quieter as you do the High Note trail, then quieter on the Musical Bumps trail to Russet Lake. This is a lovely trail that’s accessible to many people, it’s not at all technical and has amazing meadows with views of amazing glaciers and mountains on either side. It’s stunning.
Camping at Russet Lake is nice, it was windy in the evening which kept the bugs away.
The only real problem I’ve got is that you are on a series of mountains that lead you one of two ways, towards Overlord Mountain, or back. There really isn’t anywhere to go with huge glacial valleys on either side. So next day I tried Overlord - an amazing peak with glaciers on either side at 2,625m.
I got up to over 2,115m on the way up Rector Peak and that’s when I found that the trail was getting more exposed than I liked. It probably would have been fine, but based on what I read about online and spoke about with people who did it - I decided to turn around. The views were stunning at this point anyway.
There wasn’t much else to do there, so I headed back down Singing Pass into Whistler. I partly wanted to see what Singing Pass was like and now I know. Consistent gradient, down in the shade of trees, and a pretty boring long hike down into Whistler.
Would do Russet Lake again, maybe try Overlord Mountain if I’m with someone or feeling in a better head space.