Stawamus Chief Mountain, aka "The Chief," is the second largest granite monolith in the world, and is located in Squamish BC, about halfway between Vancouver and Whistler. It is a popular destination for climbers from all over the world, and also has a series of beautiful, but extremely challenging, hiking trails.
Panoramic view from the first peak.
The Chief has three main summits (aptly named First Peak, Second Peak and Third Peak) separated by gullies. They can be reached either by climbing the sheer granite cliffs, or by hiking up the well-marked, but extremely rugged, backside trails.
View from the Second Peak, with First Peak in the background.
Although the view from the Second Peak is my absolute favourite of the three, in the interest of it being my son's first time doing such a challenging hike, we stuck with the First Peak, which is a 1.5 km (1 mile) long trail with an elevation gain of 540 metres (1770 feet). In other words, it is one seriously steep uphill climb!
The view from the First Peak isn't too shabby either!
Coincidentally, the last time I had a chance to do this hike was exactly six years ago: when I was nearly eight months pregnant with same said son!
Me and my eight months pregnant belly, circa 2011, on top of the world... or at least on top of Squamish.
It was such a neat experience to be able to do this hike together, while telling him all about how I carried him up here six years ago in my belly. We hiked with our good friends: two adults and three children in all. Here are a few more photos from our journey up and down the mountain:
A Western Skink. This was my first time ever finding a lizard while hiking in BC!
Trying to push over the giant boulder.
Some sections of the trail are so steep and otherwise impassable, that ladders have been built into the rock.
Other sections have chains, to help people climb and descend the steep, slippery granite face.
Requisite selfie near the summit.
Success! The beautiful vista from the summit makes it worth every bit of effort.
Heading back down, the kids chose to crab walk and slide on their bums, because the rock was too slippery to walk normally.
My son and me, posing for a photo on an old tree stump. He was pretty exhausted by this point, as in many ways, the descent is more challenging than the ascent.
Me, posing on the same tree stump (from a slightly different angle), pregnant with my son
Geology of Stawamus Chief Mountain
From Wikipedia:
The Chief is part of a medium-sized pluton of a granitic rock (granodiorite) that was initially formed in the early Cretaceous (approximately 100 million years ago) by the slow cooling and solidification of molten magma deep below the surface of the Earth. Exhumation of the granite body probably occurred mostly by erosion of overlying rocks over tens of millions of years, with glacial erosion processes dominating exhumation over the last 2.5 million years. Once exposed at the surface, the original granite body was shaped by glacial erosion, which is responsible for the tall steep walls that define the Chief, as well as the excavation of Howe Sound, a fjord. Classic hallmarks of glacial erosion are ubiquitous, especially polished, striated surfaces. Polish and striations observable at the very summit of the formation require that, at the peak of glaciation, the entire formation was buried under a substantial thickness of ice.
The striking gullies that separate and define the three summits of the Chief are the result of fracturing and mass-wasting of large blocks along a series of vertical, and roughly north-south oriented deep seated fracture sets (joints).
The Chief may be the root of an extinct volcano because no volcanic activity has occurred in the Squamish area from about 86 million years ago to the beginning of Garibaldi Volcanic Belt volcanism about 2-3 million years ago. In the Squamish area, Garibaldi Volcanic Belt volcanism ceased during or shortly after the end of the last ice age.
Photo: "Stawamus Chief," courtesy of Wikipedia
(All photos are mine, except where indicated.)