Bench

Bench: a flat section in steep terrain. Characteristically narrow, flat or gently sloping with steep or vertical slopes on either side. A bench can be formed by various geological processes. Natural erosion of a landscape often results in a bench being formed out of a hard strip of rock edged by softer, sedimentary rock. The softer rock erodes over time, leaving a narrow strip of rock resulting in a bench. Coastal benches form out of continuous wave erosion of a coastline.

Whistler & Garibaldi Park

Ablation Zone Accumulation Zone Adit Lakes Aiguille Alpine Zone Arête ARRTI Armchair Glacier The Barrier Battleship Islands Bears Bench Bergschrund Bivouac Cairn/Inukshuk Carter Chimney Cirque Cloudraker Coast Mountains Cordilleran Cornice Corrie Lake Crevasse Dalgleish Deadfall Emerald Forest Erratic The Fissile Fitzsimmons Creek Fitzsimmons Range Fyles Garibaldi Ranges Garibaldi Volcanic Belt Gemel Glacier Window Green Lake Hoary Marmot Krummholz Lithophyte Moraine Mt Garibaldi Mt James Turner Northair Mine Nunatuk Overlord Peak 2 Peak Roundhouse Rubble Creek Scree Spearhead Range Tarn The Table Townsend Usnea Winram

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Cutting away at a coastline can result in vertical cliffs dozens or hundreds of metres high with a distinct bench form. Often a bench takes the form of a long, flat top ridge. Panorama Ridge in Garibaldi Provincial Park is an excellent example of a bench. The Musical Bumps trail on Whistler Mountain is another good example of bench formations. Each "bump" along the Musical Bumps trail is effectively a bench. Russet Lake in Garibaldi Provincial Park has a prominent bench adjacent to it. The bench separates Russet Lake and Adit Lakes. Adit Lakes are two idyllic little tarns in a hidden valley separated from the much busier Russet Lake valley by this bench. Towering above Russet Lake is The Fissile, which is visible from Whistler Village in several places. Easy to spot on a clear day if you look up the valley between Whistler Mountain and Blackcomb Mountain, The Fissile is the symmetrical mountain peak in between. The image below is the bench that separates Russet Lake and Adit Lakes and The Fissile in the next image at the far left.

Erratic or Glacier Erratic is a piece of rock that has been carried by glacial ice, often hundreds of kilometres. Characteristic of their massive size and ...

If you make it to the summit of Wedge Mountain you will notice off in the distance a beautifully symmetrical mountain that stands out among the rest. ...

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 ...

Mount Garibaldi is the huge, potentially active volcano that Garibaldi Provincial Park is named after. Mount Garibaldi also lends its name to the Garibaldi ...

Waterbar and Cross-Ditch: the purpose of a waterbar or cross-ditch is to capture and redirect surface water from the road and channel it across the road ...

The Fitzsimmons Range is a subsection of the Garibaldi Ranges that covers the area between the valleys of Cheakamus Lake and Fitzsimmons Creek. Fitzsimmons ...

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 ...

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 ...