Tricouni: A Great Day Trip
Two weeks ago we had planned to go to Tricouni, but the drizzle and grey clouds on the way made us change destinations last minute, and we ended up on Mt. Gardner on Bowen Island – we figured it would be good to keep Tricouni for a nice day. Last Sunday we drove up to Squamish and on to the Squamish valley FSR, and then up High Falls Creek FSR, steep and loose in places, but still driveable with 2WD. The last part had shallow cross ditches and we scraped a few times until we were stopped by a particularly deep one. We hiked up the logging road to the trailhead, and along the muddy trail.
We passed three lakes: the first has a small island, and the third was still partially frozen and had turquoise puddles in it. The weather improved as it got later, and we got a good view of our route and the summit from the third lake. From there we hiked up on snow and scree to just below a subsummit. Here we met Jordan and Kaitlyn, also VOC’ers – too bad we didn’t organize to go together to save gas and use their 4WD. We then scrambled up onto the summit ridge and along it to the summit. We met two BCMC’ers there, one of which I had been with on a ski trip this winter. We had a late lunch on the summit, enjoying the panoramic views. I couldn’t find the summit register, so perhaps someone removed it. On the way down the light was much softer and the views much better. The watermelon algae made an impressive showing in bright red channels in the snow. We glissaded down some of the snow slopes and ran down others, and made good time back to the car.
