Subject Mountain: Mount Price Regions: BC Coast / Greater Wedge / Castle Towers Park: Garibaldi Provincial Park JavaMap . ZoomMap . Automap . Radius Search September 28, 2008   (2 days) Calculated Length: 27 km     Elevation Gain: 1800m Participants: Betsy Waddington, Laurent Mingo, Robin Tivy Difficulty: 3: Mostly high speed trail, Mount Price trail is difficult walking in places where you climb over lava flow boulders. Descent from Price is easy walking in meadow and old growth, easy fording of Culliton Creek. Getting onto Brohm ridge one iceaxe would be handy on frozen snow. Final connect with Swift Creek very difficult bush. Equipment: Boots, one ice axe would have been useful. Abstract: Hiking traverse from Garibaldi Lake over Mount Price, down into Warren Meadows then up to Brohm Ridge and out. Value: 68

Access Level: 1 = Any Car   From Squamish drive north on Highway 99 about 35 km and turn right onto the paved Rubble Creek Road and drive a couple of km to the parking lot. On the other end of the traverse, we walked down the Swift Creek road and got a ride back up highway 99 to our car.     Final Access Road: Rubble Creek Road

Trip Report: We discovered this spectacular traverse by accident, so I thought I should do a first class writeup, in order that you can give it a try yourself. The traverse goes from Garibaldi Lake, over the top of Mount Price, then across the upper meadows of Culliton Creek ("Warren Meadows") and up to Brohm Ridge and then out via Swift Creek. We did the traverse with perfect weather on Sunday and Monday at the end of September. Our original plan was just to do a simple two day trip up Mount Price and then hike back out the same way. However, when we got to the top of Price, we decided it would be more interesting to continue down the other side and over to Brohm ridge and out.

The other thing I was experimenting with was a better format for keeping my "black book" of field notes. See Format for Field Notes. We even went to the trouble of learning how to use the little microphonees that have always been in our cameras, to record comments on the photos.

We met Laurent at the church parking lot in North Vancouver, Sunday morning. Here we dumped my car, and all three of us got into his new 1996 Subaru Outback and cruised up to the Garibaldi Lake parking lot. When we got to Garibaldi, there were more than 50 cars in the parking lot, due to a running event across from Helm meadows. In order to get a two day parking receipt, we were forced to also pay for camping. We got underway at 9:48 AM. As we went up the trail we had to continuously jump to one side as runners came the other way. However eventually the downward runners stopped, and we reached the lake at 12:36 PM. We had lunch on a beach near the outlet. There were lots of people concentrated in and around the camping area.

After lunch, we set out for Mount Price. It was nice to leave the crowds behind. Betsy and Laurent were worried that the park rangers might think we were planning to camp in some unauthorized spot just behind the campground, so we made sure we avoided them by going out the top end of the campground, and then heading directly north, going cross country. We soon hit the main trail to Mount Price just south of Battleship Bay. We were on our own.

The first part of the trail was a beaten path, but as we started to climb, we had to scramble over the big boulders of the lava flow. Here the trail was marked by the occasional pink ribbon, and numerous times I found them helpful, since there's not really a beaten path. Between the rough sections, the beaten path resumed. As it turns out, the lava flow parts of the trail are probably the roughest travel for the whole trip, (until the very end, but that's another story).

As we climbed the trail, we could see more and more glorious views behind us, with Black Tusk and Garibaldi Lake.

Black Tusk from Slopes of Mount Price.

By 14:42 PM, we were at 1620m, and got our first view of Mount Price.

First View of Mount Price

So far we hadn't seen anywhere to camp, but we thought that perhaps the snow slope on Mount Price would provide water. We climbed up the final ridge and by 15:41 we were at the col between Price and Clinker Peak, at 1940m. There was no convenient place to camp there. So we dropped our packs and went up the peak of Mount Price. It seemed like the best place to camp was just below the summit, where there was some very shallow running water and some old snow. There really weren't a lot of options for camping at the end of September. So we went back and got our packs, and hiked up to the summit plateau.

For a tent, we had a new experiment: just a shell tent, with a single center pole and no floor. It weighed just a little over 1 kg for the three of us. The edges staked out with pegs, and we slept on the dry dirt.

Black Diamond Shell Tent No floor, but incredibly light

Day 2 - Mount Price to Brohm Ridge

Next morning we got up at 8:00. I suggested that we could go down to the meadows below the Warren Glacier (Warren Meadows), thinking we could leave our packs at the top. But quickly the idea evolved into doing a traverse, and somehow coming out by Brohm Ridge and then hitch-hiking back to our car. A bold new plan! Once we had the plan, we were hiking by 8:55.

The descent from Mount Price to Warren meadows was as easy and beautiful as you could want. We started at the col at to the east of the peak, same place we had come up the previous day. There were occasionally footprints in the soft pink and brown ash. Below us, we could see a promising looking meadow avenue through the trees, and then far below, the beautiful lakes of Warren Meadows.

Prominent meadow avenue through the trees

The meadow avenue took us right through the trees, then into a cold sink hole. There was a beaten path, it was re-assuring to know we weren't the first white men in this country. The bottom of the sink hole was completely level, and filled with dry brown grass. A perfect place to camp except no water. Part way across the sink hole was an old red fire fighting tank and backpack, sitting on a rock.

Betsy in cold sink hole You need to climb 10m out other end

At the end of the sink hole, we climbed up about 10m over a small ridge, and then down thru trees for 20m into a big meadow. Looking back from the meadow, I made a note that this was a critical part of the route: it would be difficult to pick this spot out if you were doing the traverse in reverse. If you were going the other way, the natural tendency would be to continue up the lower meadow, instead of heading up into the wall of trees containing the route. For this reason I recorded the exact waypoint as "Critical Turn Point". From my GPS, exactly WGS 84 49:54:15-123:02:07). There were two ribbons marking the spot, but not too obvious. Also if you look closely, you'd see your objective, Mount Price.

Once in this meadow at 1665m we crossed the meadow, and then had to descend a final "big drop" of almost 200m to get into the flat bottom of the gravel flats of the Warren glacier area (Warren meadows). The best way to do the "big drop" is to start off on the right hand side of an obvious talus slope, go down part way to 1545m and then cross over to the left side of the rockslide, and continue to the bottom. The route down is all in spacious old growth, with no bushwacking or difficult travel.

Warren Meadows visible below the Talus slope on big drop

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Once at the bottom of the Big Drop, we were on the open gravel flats. This was pretty easy walking. Occasionally there were small morraines of 5m high, and patches of 2m high birch trees.

Warren Meadows with Mt Garibaldi and Brohm Ridge in back

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Eventually we reached Culliton Creek, where we had to remove our boots to ford the creek. Although the creek was only up to our knees, the bottom was very slippery and sharp rocks, so you really had to step carefully and feel out each footstep. Betsy and I just went across in bare feet, and Laurent wore those lightweight foam shoes called "crocs".

Once across the main creek we continued south, soon coming upon a wonderfully clear blue lake. I expect this lake is good swimming in the summer, because it has no stream flowing into it, or out. The water just filters thru the morraine. We went around the east end of the first lake, and then came upon a longer lake, which we went around the western end. We then climbed up onto the great central morraine and down the other side, still heading for the obvious big snowslopes that lead up onto Brohm Ridge. We came to a second creek that required boots off. This one had a wonderfully clear tributary, as opposed to the main streams which are filled with glacial silt. If you were camping, you'd camp here, or beside one of the clear lakes.

The scenery in this section is incredible: with the Warren glacier spewing down into the lake, and icefields all around as you cross a huge glacial outwash. You might see such a big glacial plain up in the Chilcotin or Waddington area, but there's nothing like it near Vancouver. As you progress across the plain, you see spectacular views of The Table and Mount Garibaldi - certainly "world class".

Finally we climbed 100m up to 1610m and reached the outlet of the little lake that feeds the clear stream. We continued past this lake and continued up for another 50m or so and at 1665m we had lunch. It was 12:23PM. The little lake, and also the entire cirque show clearly on the 1:50K map, it is a huge 1 km indent right beside the Warren glacier.

At 12:52 we started hiking again, continuing up the cirque as the slopes got steeper. The goal is to continue south on the ridge that lies between the head of the "Old Growth" creek (south branch of Culliton Creek) and the Warren Glacier. You have two choices here: to go right to the end of the big cirque, or to cut sideways and gain the ridge on the west wall of the cirque. But either way, you end up in the same place, to get around the headwaters of "Old Growth" creek. We decided to just keep going straight ahead, although later we could see that the west ridge was a beautiful meadow. On our route, we ended up going to the left where the snow wasn't quite as steep. In September, the snow was fairly firm, and you couldn't kick steps in it very easily, so there was a limit as to how steep you could go.

Finally we were up on top of Brohm Ridge, and treated to more fabulous views as we swung around to go west on Brohm Ridge. The next decision was whether to stay high and try to immediately get onto the southern slopes of Brohm Ridge, or cut low, and bypass Brohm Peak on the north. The low route looked like less work, although there were three fairly steep snow tongues we would have to cross. So we went low. At the first snow tongue, it was a bit steeper than we though, and Laurent had to kick steps in the hard frozen snow for about 30 or 40 steps. Each step took about 5 or 10 kicks. We could have used a single ice axe to chop them. After that, we decided it would be faster to just climb up to the high route anyway. Looking back, we decided that probably the high route would have been better.

Once we were on the crest of Brohm ridge, Brohm Peak became more and more prominent. As it turns out, you have to go right over the crest of the peak, and there is an enormous drop on the south side. So we went over the top of the peak.

Once over the top, we soon hit a well beaten path used by a few dirt bikes. This path soon turned into a wide multi lane road, and there were numerous fresh dirt bike and ATV tracks. They had torn up the meadows pretty badly in places. We were glad it was Monday, otherwise the machines would have been all around.

After a km or so on Brohm Ridge, we were on the road that is shown on the 1:50K map. We stopped by the side of the road to figure out our strategy. It was already 15:36 in the afternoon. Laurent added up the distance of the switchbacks on the Brohm Ridge road to be 20 km, and it would be dark in 3 hours, by 19:00, and even when we got to the bottom, we'd have to hitch-hike in the dark back to get our car. So we decided the best bet was to head out the shortest way possible: the Swift Creek Road, which we had skied up several times in the winter. Our route from Brohm ridge would be to head north on the meadowed spur of the ridge, then descend the clearcut and hit the top of the road, then walk out over the pass to Swift Creek and down to the legendary "wood cutter's" lodge.

In reality, the "wood cutters" are Warren and Janice Brubacher. They originally got that name from Bivouac members because all we knew about them was that they had a building filled with beautiful twisted trees. These are the raw material for "Coastal Cedar Creations". They also rent out a luxurious bed and breakfast type cabin which is on their property. We had talked to Warren and Janice several times in previous years, when starting ski trips on those cold winter days, and knew they were very supportive of non-motorized hikers and skiers going up the Swift Creek road and into the famous "old growth" valley in winter.

So with the sun settling low in the sky, we headed north. The northwest arm of Brohm ridge had beautiful meadows. There were brilliant fall colors, reds and yellows around the clumps of trees. Eventually we had gone as far as possible in the meadow and headed down into the trees.

Blueberry bushes turned red

The trees were easy going, with little undergrowth or deadfalls. We didn't have the Swift Creek Road marked on our maps, but figured we would hit it at about 4000'. We didn't take much time to make compass bearings, and the woods were generally too deep for my GPS, so we just kept going. I had a general feeling that as long as we kept going down, we'd either punch out into the clearcut, or onto the Swift Creek road directly. There were even little animal trails, and at one point we found two ribbons.

However, eventually we got down to 4000', and decided to take a compass bearing. The entry in my log book says: "17:53 Lost in Woods, 4130', rockslide, cliffs on our left, drainage is going south!"

We were badly off course. If you look at the map, you'll see all sorts of micro-terrain, and we were in fact between two arms of the upper Brohm River. So we decided we should immediately alter course, and go west for a bit then go north, to get over the ridge and into the Culliton drainage again. So we headed west. As soon as we altered course, the travel got rough. Chest high blueberry bushes. Small morraines that had to be climbed. And then an increasingly tough descent with a few cliffs. It was getting dark, not much time to lose. Eventually we broke out into the clearcut. This turned out to be even worse travel than before, with no road in sight. Eventually after about 45 minutes of battle across the clearcut, falling into holes, getting torn by bushes, we crossed a bushy canyon in the clearcut, and reached a road. I guess a lot of this clearcut must have been done without roads.

Once on the road, things were easy. If you look at the map, you'll see it descends straight north, and after a couple of switchbacks, it heads southwest. By now it was dark, and we got our lights out. Finally as we crossed the low pass between the Culliton and Swift Creek drainages, with the rock cliffs on the right, I recognized where we were.

The next hour and a half was a dark walk in a deep forest tunnel. Eventually we reached the Wood carvers house, to be welcomed by the barking of his dog, who detected us coming about 15 minutes before we arrived.

It was about 10:00, and none of us really wanted to impose on the wood carver, but eventually we got up the courage to knock on the door. Janice answered the door, so I hastily introduced myself, and said we decided to drop in on him for a visit. Warren was playing his guitar along with Allison Kraus on a record, and I recognized it right away, and said the title out loud: You say it best when you say nothing at all". (Fortunately, I've got a bunch of Allison Kraus songs in my songbook, so I knew it.)

Well, we were sure glad to see them!! Warren agreed to drive Laurent back up to Garibaldi Lake to get his car, and Janice invited Betsy and I upstairs for a nice cup of tea while we waited. It took half an hour to retrieve the car, and then we hobbled out to the car and were off, making it down the Squamish highway just before the 12:00AM road closure. Warren didn't accept any gas money, but I am obligated to get him a copy of the Bivouac Series map featuring the Old Growth Forest.

In summary, if we to repeat the trip, we could do a much better job. We could easily have gone further the first day. Also, it may have been faster to go down the Brohm Ridge road.

Associated Photo Essays
Atwell Peak from Brohm Ridge Robin Tivy
Black Tusk from Slopes of Mount Price Robin Tivy
Dalton Dome and Atwell from Brohm Ridge Robin Tivy
Going over the Top of Brohm Peak Robin Tivy
The Table from Mount Price (Summer) Robin Tivy
The Table from Warren Meadows Robin Tivy
Warren Glacier from Warren Meadows Robin Tivy