Went on my first backcountry camping trip to Garibaldi Provincial Park this weekend. Garibaldi is a large wilderness park located between Squamish and Whistler. There are a number of different trails and backcountry campsites in Garibaldi but we took the trail to the Taylor Meadows Campground.

After an unsuccessful attempt at trying to sort an issue with my hydration pack in the parking, we set off. My pack weighed quite a bit but was surprisingly comfortable on.

The trail to Taylor Meadows is a constant stream of switchbacks up a hill through a forest. Fortunately, the trail is wide and fairly smooth so the walking was pretty easy. It’s 7.5 km up to the Taylor Meadows Campground, about 9 km if you head to the campground at Garibaldi Lake.

The first 3 km were very enjoyable but the next few seemed to drag on. There are 1 km markers along the way, apart from 5, which appeared to be missing.

I thought I had read somewhere that after about 6 km the trail levelled of off so we rejoiced at 6 km. However, I must have been reading about the trail to Garibaldi Lake as the remaining 1.5 km to Taylor Meadows was more of the uphill switchbacks ?.

We finally made it up though and set up or tents.

Had some celebratory prosecco for making it up the hill with the packs!

We then hung up our food (to keep bears and other critters from eating it) and made some lunch.

The campsite was very nice and had a cabin for making food and eating. The outhouse even had toilet paper! No tap water but there was a nice stream beside the campground to gather water. Should treat the water though to avoid ‘beaver fever’.

After lunch we headed down to Garibaldi Lake for a walk. The lake is glacier fed, amazingly clear and a beautiful turquoise blue.

Returned to the camp to make some dinner and have some wine. Nice to lounge around in the dining hut and avoid the bugs!

After dinner we went outside by the campsite and made some Smores on the cookstove, which worked surprisingly well.

Went to sleep and managed to sleep reasonably well although was tired and ended up sleeping in until around 7:30 or so. It was cool in the tent in the morning!

Woke up and had some breakfast before packing up the tent. Left the stuff in the other tent and went for a bit of a hike towards Panorama Ridge. Was a beautiful day and the hike was pleasant through meadows with nice views of Black Tusk and the surrounding mountains.

We made it about 2/3 of the way to the ridge before turning back. Returned to the camp to pack up the rest of our stuff and turn headed down the mountain.

Busy on the way down with lots of day hikers going up and down. The hill definitely seemed more steep going down – was shocked I kept going on the way up! Finally made it back to the trailhead and car. Was relieved to change my boots and get the pack off! A great trip and looking forward to the next one in a few weeks.