Took a lucky break in the weather and headed to Garibaldi Provincial Park to scramble up Mount Price. Lying south of Garibaldi Lake, Mount Price offers incredible 360 views of the Tantalus and Garibaldi Provincial Park from it’s large, flat summit: particularly, looking north over panorama ridge and Black Tusk. We ran it in a day from the Rubble Creek parking lot, covering the 30k and 1800+ meters of elevation in about 6 hours.

First bit of advice, get to the trail head early. We arrived shortly after 9am and not only were all the parking lots full, but the cars parked along the side of the road stretched almost a km back along towards the highway.

From the parking lot, the trail is a standard series of switch-backs through Pacific Coast forest. Wide and well-worn, it’s smooth and perfect for running – especially on the descent. Passing the first turning at 6k, for Taylor meadows, we continued straight on past Barrier lake and Lesser Garibaldi Lake until we hit the most westerly point of Garibaldi lake.

Arriving at Garibaldi Lake after ascending from Rubble Creek

Mount Price, sitting just south of, and looking over, Garibaldi Lake

We followed the trail that skirts south around the lake all the way to the rangers hut, where the trail to Mount Price starts, however, we appeared to be at a complete dead-end. It wasn’t. After a good few minutes of way-finding and rummaging around in the bushes, we pushed-through to find the trail continues on. It’s pretty over-grown for the first few hundred meters and only a few pieces of flagging tape remain, which make following the meandering and modest trail fairly tricky. After passing through what feels like old lava fields or glacial debris the trail becomes much more distinct. It travels along a series of ridges and ravines before the trees begin to thin and you emerge in the alpine. As it does, the trail becomes much more runnable.

Getting out of the trees on the trail to Mount Price

The trees then come to a sudden end and you’re left with nothing ahead of you but the big scree slope that is the west ridge of Mount Price. At this point, the trail pretty-much vanishes and it’s back to good old fashioned cairns.

Beginning the scramble up to Mount Price

Scrambling up the west ridge to Mount Price provides great views across Garibaldi Lake to the north as well as over the Tantalus to the west. It’s easy going with the loose rock and scree making it a little more interesting. Doesn’t take long before it levels out and you’re in the shoulder between Mount Price and Clinker Peak.

Looking at the back of Mount Price

The last leg up the back of Mount Price with Clinker Peak (centre) and Mount Garibaldi (left) in the background

3.5hrs and 14.8 kms later, we finally top out on the flat summit of Mount Price

Looking north over Garibaldi Provincial Park and Lake from the summit of Mount Price

Looking south over the flat summit of Mount Price towards Mount Garibaldi

Mount Garibaldi and the table, as seen from the summit of Mount Price

After lunch at the top and numerous photos, we started our journey back. The majority of the trail back to Garibaldi Lake is runnable which makes for a significantly quicker return journey (the downhill helps too).

Spot the Dabous – heading back down the back of Mount Price with Mount Garibaldi standing tall in the background

Heading back down the west ridge of Mount Price

Cruising along the trail back into the trees to Garibaldi Lake

The boulder fields in the trees below Mount Price – an old lava flow, maybe?

Arriving back at Garibaldi Lake after summiting Mount Price (right)