Garibaldi trip report.

A while back, I finally got my passport renewed. As a result, the boyfriend declared that we should go to Canada, since he's never been to B.C. My parents were going to be at their timeshare in Whistler, so it made sense to overlap the two trips. All this resulted in he and I spending three nights in Garibaldi Provincial Park. I'd been there once before on a day hike with my dad, since it's just half an hour south of Whistler. I've been itching to get back there with my new camera, and to show the place off to Andrew. (I love sharing places I love with people I love.)
You can see the bulk of the pics I took over on Flickr. It's an amazingly gorgeous place. Full report behind the cut!
( Read more... )

Geology Field Trip Report - Garibaldi Provincial park

Geology Field Trip Report
Last week, me and the boyfriend went backpacking in Garibaldi Provincial Park, a few hours north of Vancouver, B.C. I love this place, not just because it's beautiful, but because it illustrates the intersection of two of my favorite geological processes: volcanism and glaciation. You know where else there's volcanoes and glaciers? Mars. And a lot of Mars may look like this area.

To start: way, way back when, in the Triassic (200 million years ago. Dinosaurs were just starting to show up.) there was an island arc, much like the Aleutians or the Leeward Caribbean islands. This got smushed into the continent, and then, in the Jurassic (150 million years ago. Full of dinosaurs) magma pushed up from deep in the earth--not breaking the surface--and crystallized into a granite batholith, which eventually became exposed to the air. Eventually, thanks to plate subduction, volcanoes erupted and created the Garibaldi Volcanic Field.

To get to the trailhead, you pass through this zone the government as designated as a landslide hazard. They don't allow any building, and recommend you don't stop your car there for long. This is because just upstream of the aptly named Rubble Creek, is...The Barrier. It's very dramatically named, and it is pretty dramatic looking. Certainly its origin is exciting.

( Read more... )