The rocky and narrow row of islands in Garibaldi Lake just offshore from the Garibaldi Lake campsite are known as Battleship Islands. Named by the prolific mountaineer Neal Carter in 1927 "..because they are a group of tiny islands with often a single tree as a mast, presenting the appearance of boats, as viewed from Panorama Point(a lookout on Panorama Ridge)." The name "The Battleship Islands" originally appeared on AJ Campbell's 1928 map of Garibaldi Provincial Park.
Garibaldi Park maps since 1957 have officially shortened the name to "Battleship Islands. The Battleship Islands are located roughly parallel to the shoreline in front of the Garibaldi Lake campground. Garibaldi Lake is the centre and base for much of the hiking in Garibaldi Provincial Park. The Garibaldi Lake campsite is located on the amazing, turquoise shores of this massive and mostly still wild mountain lake. There are no trails around the edge of the lake except the small section leading to the campsites, so your view is an impossibly coloured lake edged by swaths of forest and a magnificent glacier towering in the distance. Compared to other lakes in the Whistler area and in Garibaldi Provincial Park, Garibaldi Lake is enormous with a surface area of almost 10 square kilometres or 2460 acres. It is also a very deep lake with its average depth of 119 metres or 390 feet and at its deepest, 258 metres or 849 feet! What really makes Garibaldi Lake extraordinary is its geography. It is flanked by volcanoes on three sides and lava flows from Mount Price during the last ice age formed The Barrier which blocked the valley which filled with water, creating Garibaldi Lake. Vantage points around the lake such as Panorama Ridge and Black Tusk allow relatively easy views of this magnificent lake with Mount Garibaldi and other impressive peaks surrounding it. At the Garibaldi Lake campsite the water is painfully cold, though plenty of brave hikers swim here as well as camp. Garibaldi Lake, though beautiful enough as a primary destination, is often a base camp for further hiking. The summit of Black Tusk is just a 2 hour hike from the lake. Panorama Ridge is a bit further at about 3 hours from the lake. Taylor Meadows is a beautiful, often flower filled valley, and home to the other Garibaldi Provincial Park campsites in the area. Helm Creek campsites are located past Black Tusk and Panorama Ridge, on the way to Cheakamus Lake. If you can manage transport, you can start at Rubble Creek trailhead and finish at Cheakamus Lake trailhead. This allows for a linear route instead of a there and back route. Garibaldi Lake, Taylor Meadows, Black Tusk, Panorama Ridge, Helm Creek and Cheakamus Lake are all beautiful destinations on their own, but combined in a 2 or 3 day hiking expedition are extraordinary.
More Whistler & Garibaldi Park Hiking A to Z!
Chimney: a gap between two vertical faces of rock or ice. Often a chimney offers the only viable route to the summit of a mountain. An example of this is Black ...
Back in 2011 Kups, a Whistler local and now professional muralist painted a hauntingly surreal, blue face on the side of this house. This beautiful ...
Green Lake is the marvellously vivid, green coloured lake just north of Whistler Village. Driving north on the Sea to Sky Highway, Green Lake appears ...
Mills Winram was a very active mountaineer from Vancouver with some very notable ascents in the 1920's and 1930's. He, along with Fred Parkes and Stan ...
The Cloudraker Skybridge and the Raven’s Eye Cliff Walk are new additions to the summit of Whistler Mountain. The Cloudraker Skybridge stretches 130 ...
When you hike in the alpine in Whistler and Garibaldi Provincial Park, you will often encounter unbelievably hardy and sometimes mangled looking trees. ...
The short, winding, and ever-changing hiking trail to Rainbow Falls is the same as the much more popular trailhead for Rainbow Lake. The trailhead is marked as the Rainbow Trail, and the trail quickly ...
Ring Lake is a fantastically serene and wonderfully remote lake similar to Cirque Lake, but considerably farther to hike to reach it. The 10 kilometre(6.2 mile) hike takes you through a rarely hiked forest, ...
Black Tusk is the extraordinarily iconic and appropriately named mountain that can be seen from almost everywhere in Whistler. The massive black spire of crumbling rock juts out of the earth in an incredibly ...
Keyhole Hot Springs (aka Pebble Creek Hot Springs) is located 100 kilometres from Whistler (Village Gate Blvd). Though much of the drive to Keyhole is on logging roads, the route is driveable by most cars ...
July is a wonderful time to hike in Whistler and Garibaldi Provincial Park. The weather is beautiful and the snow on high elevation hiking trails is long ...
August hiking in Whistler definitely has the most consistently great, hot weather. You can feel the rare pleasure of walking across a glacier shirtless and ...
September hiking in Whistler is possibly the best month of all. The snow has melted far up to the mountain tops, yet the temperatures are still quite high. ...
Hiking in Whistler in October is often unexpectedly stunning. The days are much shorter and colder but the mountains are alive with colour from the fall ...
Hiking in Whistler is spectacular and wonderfully varied. Looking at a map of Whistler you see an extraordinary spider web of hiking trails that are unbelievably numerous. Easy trails, moderate trails and challenging hiking trails are all available. Another marvellous ...
Squamish is located in the midst of a staggering array of amazing hiking trails. Garibaldi Provincial Park sprawls alongside Squamish and up and beyond Whistler. Tantalus Provincial Park lays across the valley to the west and the wonderfully remote Callaghan Valley ...
Clayoquot Sound has a staggering array of hiking trails within it. Between Tofino and Ucluelet, Pacific Rim Park has several wilderness and beach trails, each one radically different from the last. The islands in the area are often Provincial parks on their own with ...
Victoria has a seemingly endless number of amazing hiking trails. Most take you to wild and beautiful Pacific Ocean views and others take you to tranquil lakes in beautiful BC Coastal Rainforest wilderness. Regional Parks and Provincial Parks are everywhere you turn in ...
The West Coast Trail was created after decades of brutal and costly shipwrecks occurred along the West Coast of Vancouver Island. One shipwreck in particular was so horrific, tragic and unbelievable that it forced the creation of a trail along the coast, which ...
The rocky and narrow row of islands in Garibaldi Lake just offshore from the Garibaldi Lake campsite are known as Battleship Islands. Named by the prolific mountaineer Neal Carter in 1927 "..because they are a group of tiny islands with often a single tree as a mast, presenting the appearance of boats, as viewed from Panorama Point(a lookout on Panorama Ridge)." The name "The Battleship Islands" originally appeared on AJ Campbell's 1928 map of Garibaldi Provincial Park. 
Alexander Falls 
Ancient Cedars 
Black Tusk 
Blackcomb Mountain 
Cheakamus River 
Cirque Lake 
Sproatt East 
Wedgemount Lake 
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