The Cordilleran Ice Sheet covered most of north-west North America for much of the last 2.6 million years. At the Last Glacial Maximum during the Last Glacial Period(26,500 years ago), the Cordilleran Ice Sheet likely covered as much as 2.5 million square kilometres. Stretching from Alaska to Oregon, British Columbia was entirely covered in ice that in many places over two kilometres thick. At the Continental Divide of North America the Cordilleran Ice Sheet merged with the Laurentide Ice Sheet.
The Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets combined covered most of North America and held one and a half times more water than the Antarctic Ice Sheet does today. Interestingly, the Cordilleran Ice Sheet did not cover most of Alaska(north of the Alaska Ridge) due to the climate being too dry to produce lasting glaciers. Another remarkable feature of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet is how quickly it disappeared relative to the Laurentide Ice Sheet. It is thought, and it really only is a thought, that the Laurentide took eleven thousand years to disappear, whereas the Cordilleran only about four thousand years. Ice ages are bewilderingly complex and it is hard to get a grasp on how so many barely understood variables combine to move us into and out of ice ages. The best we can do is hone in on more graspable aspects of glaciation and try to piece together an enormous puzzle. Approximately 9000 years ago the Cordilleran Ice Sheet was in rapid retreat and Mount Price was an active volcano. Lava flowing from Mount Price met the ice wall that filled Cheakamus Valley and formed The Barrier. The Barrier allowed Garibaldi Lake to form, where previously it was a valley extending into Cheakamus Valley. The Barrier is just one of many striking geologically formed features of Garibaldi Park close to Whistler. The Table and Black Tusk are two other bizarre and beautiful mountains produced through volcanoes pushing through the enormous Cordilleran Ice Sheet.
The Table is thought to have formed just a few thousand years ago when the Cordilleran Ice Sheet covered much of northwest North America. In 1951 Canadian Geologist Bill Mathews pieced together how this interesting mountain formed. He theorized that magma must have melted a vertical tube through to the surface of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet. The pooling lava cooled and hardened into a flat topped mountain. The lack of glacier erosion around The Table indicates that it formed at the end of the last ice age when the Cordilleran Ice Sheet was in quick retreat. So, looking across from Black Tusk to The Table you can try to visualize the land all around buried in an ice sheet about level with where you are standing. About 12000 years ago, there was a pure white sea of ice all around, and an unseen column of lava melting to the surface like a molten rock lake. What a sight it must have been with a cauldron of lava in the midst of a glacier hundreds of metres thick. While studying The Table as well as others in norther British Columbia, Bill Mathews referred to these flat topped mountains as tuyas. He called them tuyas after the Tuya River and Tuya Range in northern British Columbia.
More Whistler & Garibaldi Park Hiking A to Z!
Tom Fyles (27 June 1887 - 27 March 1979) was an astoundingly skilled climber and mountaineer based out of Vancouver where he was an early explorer of the ...
Scree: from the Norse “skridha”, landslide. The small, loose stones covering a slope. Also called talus, the French word for slope. Scree is mainly formed ...
The Peak 2 Peak Gondola connects Whistler Mountain and Blackcomb Mountain at a dizzying height of 436 metres(1427 feet). It runs all winter and in the ...
Fitzsimmons Creek is the beautiful and huge creek that crashes through Whistler Village. When walking from Whistler Village to the Upper Village, you will cross ...
The Garibaldi Volcanic Belt is a line of mostly dormant stratovolcanoes and subglacial volcanoes largely centred around Whistler and extending through much ...
The Table is an extraordinary flat-topped mountain located in Garibaldi Park just one kilometre south of Garibaldi Lake. Sometimes reflexively referred to as ...
The Coast Mountains run from the Yukon down to Vancouver along the west coast of British Columbia in a band that averages 300 kilometres wide(190 miles). ...
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 ...
Meager Hot Springs(aka: Meager Creek Hot Springs) is located 93 kilometres northwest of Whistler, was beautifully developed into gorgeous pools, with a caretaker and usage charge. At its height of ...
Jane Lakes are a very remote feeling set of lakes in the beautiful wilderness near Cheakamus Crossing. Consisting of three lakes, West Jane Lake, East Jane Lake and Little Jane Lake, they have a great ...
Skookumchuck Hot Springs(aka T'sek Hot Springs and St. Agnes Well), located two hours north of Whistler along the edge of the huge Lillooet River. The name Skookumchuck means "strong water" in the language ...
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 ...
November in Whistler is when the temperatures plummet and the first heavy snow falls in the alpine and often in Whistler Village. The hiking opportunities become ...
December hiking in Whistler is mainly done on snowshoes, though not always. If it hasn't snowed much recently then trails such as Whistler Train Wreck and ...
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 Cordilleran Ice Sheet covered most of north-west North America for much of the last 2.6 million years. At the Last Glacial Maximum during the Last Glacial Period(26,500 years ago), the Cordilleran Ice Sheet likely covered as much as 2.5 million square kilometres. Stretching from Alaska to Oregon, British Columbia was entirely covered in ice that in many places over two kilometres thick. At the Continental Divide of North America the Cordilleran Ice Sheet merged with the Laurentide Ice Sheet.
Alexander Falls 
Ancient Cedars 
Black Tusk 
Blackcomb Mountain 
Cheakamus River 
Cirque Lake 
Sproatt East 
Wedgemount Lake 
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March 
June 
September 
