To their south are the North Shore Mountains overlooking Vancouver while to their southeast are the Douglas Ranges.

Their most famous mountain, The Black Tusk, is not among the highest in the range; it is a volcanic plug on the meadow-ridge between Garibaldi and Cheakamus Lakes, just south of the resort of Whistler, British Columbia.

[1] The northern part of the range, consisting mostly of Garibaldi Provincial Park, is extremely alpine in character, with large icefields and a sea of high peaks.

The southern part of the range, north of Stave Lake and between the upper Pitt River and the lower Lillooet River, has no major icefields because of the precipitous character of the network of plunging U-shaped valleys - many well over 5000' deep, with individual peaks with near-vertical flanks up to 7000'.

At the core of this set of ridges decorated with sharp, spiny peaks, is the highest - Mount Judge Howay 2262 m (7421 ft).