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 improbable looking placement. Erratics are frequently seen around Whistler and Garibaldi Provincial Park. Either as bizarre curiosities or a place to relax in the sun. On a sunny day, a large sun-facing erratic will often be warm and sometimes even hot, providing a comfortable and surreal place to rest.
During the last ice age, glaciers covered British Columbia, and where Whistler is today, the glaciers were two kilometres thick. Glaciers from the last ice age can often be measured by the grinding marks made on the mountains they covered. In the mountains around Whistler you can see just a few that poked through the glaciers, leaving their peaks jagged. Other, shorter mountains around Whistler can be easily recognized as completely covered in ice. Shown by their rounded, glacier ground peaks. The most impressive erratics lay in an area with dissimilar rock types in the surrounding mountains. For example, rock and mountains around the erratic should be of different colour, texture and composition. An erratic should look very out of place and distinct from its surroundings. Erratics are frequently the result of glaciers carrying or grinding the erratic as it slowly moves down a glacier valley. Rock slides from mountains can deposit house sized boulders onto a glacier which then slides down a valley for centuries, eventually releasing it. These erratics are easy to trace back to their parent rock by matching them to identical rocks up the likely ice flow route. Ice rafting is another way erratics have been moved great distances. Ice rafting results from an ice dam breaking apart and tremendous volumes of water and ice flooding through. These erratics are often detected by the high water marks left by the floods that moved them. Another cause of erratics is via icebergs floating in the ocean and eventually releasing the rock encased in the melting ice.
Brandywine Meadows Lounge Chair Erratic
Monstrous Erratic Along the Brandywine Meadows Trail
Enormous Broken Erratic Along the Flank Trail
Erratic at Beautiful Wedgemount Lake
Erratic at Russet Lake
Erratic Split by a Tree on the Helm Creek Trail
More Whistler & Garibaldi Park Hiking A to Z!
Russet Lake sits in a wide, glacier carved valley at the base of The Fissile. In the direction opposite The Fissile, up on a plateau less than a ...
Alpine Zone or Alpine Tundra is the area above the treeline, often characterized by stunted, sparse forests of krummholz and pristine, turquoise lakes. Mount ...
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Overlord Mountain is the highest peak in the Fitzsimmons Range. Overlord is surrounded by several mountains that collectively are named the Overlord ...
Cairns, inukshuks or inuksuks are a pile or arrangement of rocks used to indicate a route, landmark or a summit. The word cairn originates from the ...
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 ...
Along Whistler’s Valley Trail near Rainbow Park you come across some impressively unusual trees. Unlike most other Whistler trees with straight trunks and ...
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 ...
Cheakamus Lake is a wonderfully relaxing way to get in the wilderness easily and quickly from Whistler Village. The trail begins on the far side of Whistler Mountain, 8 kilometres from the Sea to Sky Highway ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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 improbable looking placement. Erratics are frequently seen around Whistler and Garibaldi Provincial Park. Either as bizarre curiosities or a place to relax in the sun. On a sunny day, a large sun-facing erratic will often be warm and sometimes even hot, providing a comfortable and surreal place to rest. 
Alexander Falls 
Ancient Cedars 
Black Tusk 
Blackcomb Mountain 
Cheakamus River 
Cirque Lake 
Sproatt East 
Wedgemount Lake 
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