Instead of Pacific breakers, you will see waves of 8,000-foot peaks, glaciers clinging to their flanks… high valleys in which the green of alpine meadows mixes with the blue-green of glacial lakes… low valleys bristling with thick forest of Douglas fir, western red-cedar, and western hemlock.

The park was connected to the coast early on. In 1860, a naval captain surveying Howe Sound in the Strait of Georgia dubbed one of the area’s tallest peaks, 8,786-foot-high Mount Garibaldi, after the famous Italian patriot.

Visitors lacking advanced outdoor skills should approach Garibaldi from the west; trackless wilderness lies to the east. From southwest corner of the park the highway continues along Garibaldi’s western border. In five places spur rods thrust east into the park, each leading to one of the five developed areas within the park.

Garibaldi Provincial Park lies near the southern boundary of grizzly bear country. A few of these awesome carnivores inhabit the northern sections of Washington, Idaho, and Montana, and some live in isolated pockets farther south, notable Yellowstone National Park. But almost the entire North American population resides in western Canada and Alaska.