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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
Brandywine Falls
Brandywine Meadows
Brew Lake
Callaghan Lake
Cheakamus Lake
Cheakamus River
Cirque Lake
Flank Trail
Garibaldi Lake
Garibaldi Park
Helm Creek
Jane Lakes
Joffre Lakes
Keyhole Hot Springs
Logger’s Lake
Madeley Lake
Meager Hot Springs
Nairn Falls
Newt Lake
Panorama Ridge
Parkhurst Ghost Town
Rainbow Falls
Rainbow Lake
Ring Lake
Russet Lake
Sea to Sky Trail
Skookumchuck Hot Springs
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Sproatt East
Sproatt West
Taylor Meadows
Train Wreck
Wedgemount Lake
Whistler Mountain
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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.