stretching the legs | round mountain ski tour, garibaldi

8.5 miles . 1900 ft gain . 5090 ft high

Garibaldi Provincial Park

Backcountry skiing in British Columbia has always felt unattainable. The long drive, the unknown terrain, the long forest approaches. But I found myself at Whistler with a free day to ski and drive back to Seattle. Round Mountain was the perfect little tour.

The previous day we had skied Oboe Summit as a side country (aka lift assisted backcountry) excursion by Whistler. We found some pretty nice soft snow, likely due to wind effects. So I had some hopes for further south and lower elevation terrain. It would at least be snow covered at minimum and was a relatively popular ski tour. Online, I found reports calling it an easy beginner ski tour. Alright then, it must be straight forward enough to dip my toes here.

Well the first (and biggest) hitch was that we couldn’t drive to the trailhead. A ranger was posted about 2 km (1.5 miles) before the trailhead. And a sign saying that all vehicles were required to carry chains beyond that point. Well we didn’t have chains. The ranger made us park right then and there. There wasn’t even any snow on the ground and mountain bikers were gearing up here. Literally if you look at a map, you’ll see all the bike trails right from the Elfin Lakes trailhead. That’s Squamish for you.

So we started hiking up the road with skis A-framed to our packs. Plenty of cars passed us. But after slogging 1/3 a mile, a nice older gentleman asked if we wanted a ride. Yes, yes of course! It took a solid minute to figure out fitting everything into the vehicle since the back couldn’t be opened. But we all squished in, heads poking in between skis and rode to the trailhead.

Round Mountain and the staked out winter path

Thankfully, once we were at the trailhead, we could start skinning! But of course we didn’t quite realize it until we had finished repacking our bags and walked over to the trailhead. Perfect timing for the bathroom at least. Somehow, from the trailhead, it was continuous snow the whole way up! Continuous, but not the best coverage until the first switchback.

It was largely quite easy to follow the trail since it starts off as an old forest road for a good while until it switches to following the summer trail. That’s when it gets a bit more narrow (for the downhill). There were a surprising number of people descending as we went up. It’s something akin to the Skyline Lake winter trail by Stevens Pass but less steep.

Before long, we arrived at the Red Heather Shelter. It was so nice to have the comforts of a shelter and enjoy our snack away from the elements. But sitting for a while, we could start to feel how cold it actually was in the shelter. We soon kept moving, vacating some space for more people to enjoy their break.

As we continued on the trail, we could follow the staked out guided trail in the open terrain. This is obviously a fairly popular winter trail for snowshoers and skiers. We decided our legs were too tired so we decided against going all the way to Round Mountain proper. It would’ve been a rather flat descent back to the main trail anyway. So we opted for the shoulder south of Round Mountain. Plenty of tracks, plenty of people turned around. I presume because the snow was nothing to speak of this day.

But I could see so much potential for laps on a good snow day, especially for beginners! Without much to note, we ripped skins and descended. I wouldn’t so much call it skiing except a couple light turns before some lightly harrowing skin track descent. It was just more than I really wanted after skiing inbounds, but all things considered, a wide enough, straight forward way down to the car. We did have to walk the road back to our car so that is added in my total mileage here. Sorry!

Somehow even though this ski tour was short, it gave me more confidence for getting motivation to explore more of the Coast Mountains in British Columbia!