Hiking Whistler’s High Note Trail

With the Summer season in full gear at Whistler, BC, we thought it would be a great opportunity to head out to one of our favorite local getaways and do some day hiking. Robyn, Jenny and myself planned to hit the High Note Trail as it has been recently opened to the public.  We definitely were looking to do this long hike with the weather we have been receiving here so we geared up and headed out.

Whistler is roughly 1.5 hours (by car) North from the city of Vancouver. With the newly changed Sea to Sky Highway it is a lot safer and more scenic than ever before. You can park in the day parking lots in Whistler Village. You’ll notice that they are being paved and parts are already paved as this is for the 2010 Winter Olympics. At the time of writing this post, parking fees are not in effect, but I have heard rumours it will be roughly $10/day to park when they are complete. If you do not have a vehicle there are other options for getting up to Whistler, the two least expensive would be to take the Greyhound Bus, Snowbus or even the PCL (Pacific Coach Line) bus. You can check out Whistler/Blackcomb’s website for more information on How to Get There.

The High Note Trail itself starts at the top of Whistler’s Peak, though before you get to the Whistler Peak you need to ride the Whistler Village gondola up. The summer rate is $41.95 per person but this also allows you to use the Peak 2 Peak Gondola to get over to Blackcomb as well. A bit steep of a price, in my opinion. Robyn and I had our EDGE cards which would typically allows us a 50% discount on the regular price, but because we pre-loaded our EDGE card before a certain date for the 2010 Winter season it gave us a free Summer lift pass. The other cool feature of the EDGE card is that it also gave our friend Jenny a 25% discount on her lift pass.

At 10:00AM we hopped on the Whistler Village gondola and headed up the mountain. The ride up to the Roundhouse Lodge takes 25 minutes and then it is roughly 10 minutes to walk to the Whistler Express chair and then 10 minutes up the chair to the Peak of Whistler.

Once at the top of Whistler Peak you get a breath-taking view of the surrounding area. Black Tusk dominates the south where Whistler Village dominates the north.

The High Note Trails starts off your right side and thus we start our hike.

Along our way down we met up with this little fuzzy guy. Marmots are relatively friendly and curious as this guy would follow Robyn and Jenny down the path. He even posed for me for a bit as he got super close. Do you know where Whistler got it’s name? Well you do now! These little guys have the nickname as the Whistler. They can make whistling noises and from them Whistler got its name. Pretty cool!

The trail it self is not an easy stroll through the woods and in some parts, chains have been put in place to help guide you over the rocky surfaces. Also at this time of year there is still snow to be seen, as well as to be walked on so proper hiking shoes are definitely needed, in fact the Whistler Staff will stop anyone going up the Whistler Express chair if you do not have the proper foot attire.

Along the way down the trail on the backside of Whistler we saw about 3 other marmots who were all curious to see us. There were some tricky parts and some parts where the shale would make your feet slide but we eventually got to the next part of the trail; the beginning of of ridge hike along the backside of Whistler Mountain. Here you could also head back to the Whistler Peak via a Track Road if you’re hiking ability is not ready enough for what’s next. This portion is also technically in the Garibaldi Provincial Park and offers some pretty spectacular views of the near by Cheakamus Lake.

All you do is continue along the path. The path (or trail) is well used and for the most part really easy to see when you go over some of the scree fields.

The High Note Trail itself is about 5.1km (3.2mi)with about a 220m (722ft) elevation gain. Roughly half way into the High Note Trail you have the option to take the Half Note Trail, though this option was closed. It was probably due to poor trail conditions and the amount of snow you can still see around the mountain. The Half Note Trail takes you to Pika’s Traverse which leads you back to the Roundhouse Lodge.

We stopped at this junction and had our lunch. This is also the backside of Harmony Bowl too. There is very little shade along the path as it is south facing with the sun high in the sky, but there was a nice cool breeze to help offset the heat. Just be sure to wear lots of sunscreen!

We continued on the High Note Trail and noticed that more and more alpine flowers were growing around us. These photos unfortunately do not do the flowers any justice but you’ll just have to take our word for it.

Continuing along the trail you get some pretty spectacular views of the Cheakamus Lake. As I right this Robyn is looking up the trail maps that lead to the lake in the Garibaldi Provincial Park.

The trail got a bit more difficult and technical as we made out way around Piccolo and approached the Symphony Bowl. There were some very steep places where we had to pull ourselves up by the rope near by as well as a metal grate catwalk that spanned over and down some boulders.

Though once past that it was back to the easier trail with more spectacular flowers and views.

Eventually we got the end of the High Note Trail. Here there are two options; take the Musical Bump’s & Singing Pass that will lead you back to the Roundhouse or head up the to the Flute Summit. You can also take the Flute Summit pass and gain access into Garibaldi Provincial Park, but that is beyond our hiking gear and experience. We of course opted to head towards the Roundhouse and took the Musical Bumps & Singing Pass route.

This is where the trail map got a bit confusing to us. Trying to match the features on the map with the area around us wasn’t the easiest and we got easily confused. We got to a junction and it was hard to decipher it on the trail map itself. The trail map you pick up at the Guest Services (where you buy your lift pass) is a satellite photo overlaid with topographical markings (elevation marks) as well as trail paths. Around here is where the trail itself was not as well marked and the ground features were difficult to distinguish.  We decided on taking the North path to increase the length of our hike back to the Roundhouse. So continued along our path and bypassed what the map calls the Burnt Stew Trail.

We passed underneath the Symphony Express and followed along some Cat Track tracks. We saw a path go off to the left of us up on to Harmony Ridge but there was no way telling that was the path for us to take. We saw a sign that said To Burnt Stew Trail and Whistler Village. We followed it. We were unsure about the route we took but since both Robyn and I have skied/snowboard Symphony Bowl we did know how to get out of it incase we missed the proper path. We followed the Burnt Stew sign towards a Track Road we knew about. The Track Road is the only access out of Symphony Bowl when you are skiing or snowboarding.

We came across a small river or creek and had to get across. Jenny and I walked up it a bit to find a more shallow area, but Robyn leapt frog across on some roads only having to get her foot into the water once. We followed her and I got my foot submerged pretty good. It was nice and cool and refreshing actually.

We noticed that taking the Burnt Stew track road took us off the hiking map. We just continued along to the bottom of the Harmony Bowl and decided we would take a Blue Ski Run back up to the Roundhouse.

Overall the trail was great. It offer spectacular, breath-taking views of the near by mountain and lakes. Robyn was delighted to finally see some alpine flowers in bloom too.  This was probably the hardest trail/hike we’ve taken so far and it was worth it. We’re building ourselves up so we can do harder and longer hikes. It would be fun to get into overnight hikes but first we’re doing day hikes.

You can check out the rest of the photos I took along the way over at my Flickr High Note Trail photo set.