Trip Date: September 8
Participants: Andrzej Jarzabek, Paul Ng, Arnold Witzig, Will ?, Brittany Zenger, Geoff Zenger
Difficulty: 2/3. Easy scrambling, some mild exposure on route
Report: I bought myself a used Jeep Liberty two weeks ago, and now having a 4×4 I decided to change the destination of my trip on the BCMC schedule to Tricouni Peak, which is essentially inaccessible with a 2wd car. The trip was scheduled for the same day as the Vancouver-Whistler GranFondo bike race, but a bit of investigation revealed that the first road closures would be at 7:15 in Porteau Cove, and so by leaving Vancouver early enough, I determined that we would be able to stay ahead of the road closures and make it up the Squamish Valley to High Falls Creek.
We met at the Chevron station at Boundary & Dominion at 6:15, and quickly head off for Squamish, reaching Squamish at around 7:30, and made our way up the Squamish valley, and then up the High Falls Creek road network. There is one nasty section of road about 2.5km from the Tricouni Meadows parking area, but after this the road is in fairly good shape until less than 1 km from the landing at the end of the road. This last section of road is in really rough shape, but we pressed on to the end, and were able to set off on the trail a bit past 9 o’clock. At this point, the weather was cool and sunny, but it would soon warm up rapidly.
The Tricouni Meadow trail is easy to follow, but ridiculously muddy until near the first lake. From the first lake, we quickly ascended to the second and third lakes, and from there on up the standard route towards the summit of Tricouni. The lakes are clear and turquoise, and the flowers in the meadows above the third lake were in full bloom.
We took our time on the ascent and descent, stopping frequently to enjoy the views and the warm atmosphere, but nonetheless were on the summit about 4 hours 15 minutes from when we started. The route is primarily a hike, but the there is a short scrambling section about 30 minutes below the summit, and the last 10 minutes up the summit ridge itself are over enjoyable scrambling terrain, with mild exposure. The summit of Tricouni itself is fantastic, with nice places to sit, and views all around.
We lounged about on the summit for nearly an hour, and departed just past 2. The descent was quick and easy, and we had the time to stop at the first lake for a while, where Arnold and Andrzej summoned the courage to go for a quick swim. From the first lake it was back to the mud below, and finally back to the cars. Including the swim stop, the descent took just a few minutes over 3 hours, completing a great trip to cap the summer.