Black Tusk Overnight Hike

 

Date: August  2 & 3

Duration: 1 night, 2 hiking days

Weather: clouds, heavy rain, light showers, overcast

When was the last time you’d ever hiked in heavy rain with a full backpack carrying all your camping gear and food for one overnight and 2 hiking days?  Especially in the rain? Never? Then you were smarter than us.

https://www.vancouvertrails.com/trails/black-tusk/

The intent of the two day long overnight hike was to  train for longer hikes more difficult hikes, and to test our equipment purchased for Kili  (ie. auto-inflatable mattresses,  cortex rain jackets/pants, hiking

Half our team , Spencer and Safiya, rested at the camp site while Salim and I explored further up the trail towards the base of Black tusk. We hiked further and higher up the trail and passed  through a beautiful meadow area eventually turning back to camp  for an earl y supper.  After supper  we’d decided to  hike up towards Garibaldi lake and explore the trails around the lake itself. As you can see below, the lake was beautiful.

 

 

We discovered  our auto-inflatable air mattresses  did not hold up very well and we needed better cold weather  proofing  inner and outer wear. Aside from that the hike was amazing. We’d spent the first day carrying our gear up about 8 km’s to the camp site from the parking lot  in the midst of a heavy rainfall. Our rain gear stood the test and kept our inner layer from getting wet in spite  of the heavy rain.  The rain eventually manage  to let up enough for us to setup our tents .

Here I am trying to walk without the guiding pole.

The next day , after breakfast,  we hiked the 5+ km’s from our campsite to the base of Black Tusk. We did not  attempt to climb the “chimney” as the tip of Black Tusk is affectionately called.  We were surprised to still find snow at the very top.

 

The view from the base of Black Tusk was  phenomenal (that’s what they tell me) .  The whole morning was clouded over but as noon neared the clouds cleared  enough to take some fantastic pictures of the scene from the bottom of Black Tusk.

 

Hiking  down from the top of Black Tusk to the campsite was somewhat difficult as going down a trail is typically harder given the steeper terrain and the loose rocks with  which one can roll one’s ankle. That would not be good.  We did the the hike down from Black Tusk to our camp site in record time, took down our campsite, had lunch and started back down the trail and amazed ourselves by  reaching the parking lot , about 8kms from the camp site, in about 2 hrs.

 

 

Until the next training hike. Happy climbing.

Bill