Mount Garibaldi NE Face – Trip Report July 4th

On Friday the birthday of America our guest from Chicago and I (Ross) snuck in an Ascent of Mount Garibaldi via the NE face. Our original plan was to climb it in our normal fashion of 2 days. One day to the cam on the moraines just past brohm ridge and the second day climbing the peak and returning home. The weather forecast kept looking worse and worse for our summit days so we opted for an early start and going for the peak in one day before the weather came. 4am start from the Squamish adventure center 8 hours later we where on the summit of Garibaldi just in time for the snow to start! Perfect timing id say. A leisure decent had us back to the car in 11.5 hours return. Excellent conditions on the peak.
Approach: The normal road to Brohm Ridge is closed as a bridge is out, you must continue up the road past Cat Lake. 10km from the highway to the final locked gate. The road was fine for my stock Tacoma, some loose rocky section but otherwise ok for a 4×4 with good clearance.
From the Sledders cabin the route is pretty much entirely on snow. The snow was well set up both in the morning and afternoon on return. I wouldn’t expect any issues with this snow except after a rain event.
Route: Once on the glacier we encountered some very large bridged crevasses but with careful route selection the trip up to the Bergchrund was uneventful and straightforward. The Bergchrund was passed on the left side easily with one steep section to the snow arete. From the summit we reversed our tracks with out any sort of rappel. A previous party had ascended and rappelled the middle direct section of the Bergschrund. This didn’t look possible to climb up anymore but with a fixed snow anchor it would be possible to rappel. However i don’t think this would be any faster than the line we took.
Excellent conditions!! I would highly recommend taking advantages of the nice glacier travel and straightforward Bergschrund and climb this peak sooner than later.