Mount Price - August 12-13

We started this trip early to have enough time to go up to Mount Price on the same day. We arrived at the Rubble Creek parking lot right before 9:00am only to find the place packed with cars and people. There was a group of about 50 getting ready to go.

We were nervous we wouldn't find a campsite, so we went fast. We passed the entire group of 50 hikers (turned out they were just day hikers so they weren't a problem) and a bunch of others on the way up. We arrived at the lake in about 2 hours. Just as we started looking for a site, two families were leaving their spots so they offered one to us. They looked ready to leave with just a few things left to pack, so we just waited by the site. And waited. And waited. For a total of about 50 minutes while they packed, repacked, repacked again, rearranged their bear bells, moved around their multiple bear spray canisters (I think they were preparing for a war on the bears) and finally left. We then quickly set up camp and went to the lake to have lunch and relax before our next hike. The trout were jumping, the mice were running around, a marmot started sniffing around us while the falcons were circling above. It was nice.

We started up towards Price around 1pm. We got lost on the first part where there's a maze of trails but eventually noticed the small yellow ribbons and found the right trail. The trail is bushy in some parts, bouldery in others and heathery near the end. It was quite pleasant. The trail wasn't always too obvious but the ribbons are well placed so we always quickly found the correct route (or more precisely, Sophie always found the right route, I kept taking wrong turns).

We reached the talus slopes and saw the first and only person on the trail. He was coming down and we chatted a bit. We then continued up the multi coloured rocks and reached the top of Clinker. We continued on towards Price and noticed the only source of water on the entire trail up. It was just a small 2 meter pond of stale water. We were running low on water so we were thinking we may have to filter some from there on the way back.

We went up to Price, trying to search for the true summit and I think we eventually found the highest point on the crater rim of this old volcano. It took us about 2 and a half hours to summit. The views were spectacular with clouds parting every once in a while to show us Garibaldi or the Tantalus Range. Castle Towers was covered by clouds but the Table was clear and looked awesome. We had a snack and relaxed on the summit for a bit, enjoying the absolute quiet and solitude before heading back down towards the circus that was performing at Garibaldi Lake. We didn.t bother getting any water out of that pond as it looked nasty, but after a quick hour and a half we got back to Garibaldi Lake and drank about a litre each.

As we headed towards our tent we noticed it was looking all weird. Upon closer inspection we noticed that one of the poles broke. It must have snapped from the pressure...but what pressure? No wind, no snow, no rain...After some cursing I tried to fix it but wasn't able to do much. I put some duct tape on the sharp points and just threw the tarp over it. Worked well enough and we were lucky that there was no rain and no wind the entire night. Sierra Designs got a nasty letter the next evening...

The next day we packed quickly and then went to have breakfast. Sophie wanted to make pancakes but our pan sucked. It just twisted from the heat of the fire and burnt our pancake...MEC should be ashamed of selling such a crappy product. So we settled for some muffins and left. On our way out we saw a couple of deer chasing each other on the other side of the shore where they startled a hiker coming up who was all excited that the deer just jumped in front of his face. We got down in about 2 hours. Oh, and on the way down we saw a hiker going up with her overnight pack in her bare feet! Craziness...