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Jan 11th West Coast Trail: Part 2

This is the Exciting Conclusion to our West Coast Trail Adventure. Part 1 can be found here.

Day 5- Walbran to Campers

Another overcast morning with very light rain. Another morning sliding into cold wet clothes. My poor mood from the previous day had somewhat returned, and I was still interested in pushing a little harder to try and shave a day off. We realized doing so may require us to skip a major attraction, Owen Point, which can only be passed at low tide. Again we left it at “see how we feel at the first campsite.”

I skipped breakfast, as I usually do. I find I prefer to eat after being up and moving for an hour or two. I decided to start the day with some tea, as I was cold and wet everywhere. I asked Tess to add some of the whiskey we packed, for good measure. She handed me some whiskey with a hint of tea. I drank it down and we headed off, at which point I realized, not only had I not eaten yet, but that was the only thing I had drank that day. I was feeling pretty good suddenly, and the weather was clearing.

The day was all bush hiking. It was rough going, lots of mud and slippery roots. There were a few sections of boardwalk, and some ladders, but for the most part, it was a swamp, hopping from root, to log, to stump, to rock, some sinking some stable, some wobbling under my weight. My whiskey induced mood made it a rather enjoyable morning, though I must admit the ladders seemed an unsafe idea.

While crossing a swamp, I spotted the lower section of a hiking pole. I grabbed it and asked Erin and Tess to stop so I could catch up. It took some finagling but I was able to use one of the screws and a piece of plastic to replace the missing bolt from Tess’s hiking pole. Just call me MacGruber.

Then we came out of the trees to the edge of a large valley and I saw it… three long ladders down, a long narrow suspension bridge, and three long ladders up the other side. All bolted to a rock face that went straight down to a depth sure to kill a man who dared to fall. It was a shame I couldn’t feel that whiskey anymore, I think I could have used the courage. I went first down the ladders, watching someone else cross was liable to make me panic. I then crossed the bridge alone, it was all less terrible than I had expected.  I turned back to watch Erin cross and noticed a sign saying “max 6 hikers on the bridge at a time”. So I turned back to join Erin and waved Tess on, we took a few pictures and I turned to walk off and suddenly it hit me, the terror of heights.

I still had 3 ladders to go up. The first wasn’t bad, a reasonable lean and no left-right tilt. The second was pure terror, it was leaned hard forward at what felt like a 45-degree angle, so it felt like a crawl across a ladder, not a climb up. It also canted hard to the left, away from the rock face, which gave the sensation of someone pushing my backpack, trying to get me to fall. I could feel myself starting to panic and lock up. I just kept mumbling to myself “act now, panic after… there is time and room to freak out at the top.” I finished the second ladder and immediately started the third, not giving myself time for the panic to take hold. It also had a lean and cant, like the previous ladder, but nowhere near as bad. I hit the top and started to shake. I paced the clearing, took a drink of water, and dry heaved a few times. By the time Erin came up the ladder, I had put myself back together. When Tess got up, I joked with them about how I had dry heaved. We hit a few more short ladders, but nothing noteworthy.

While hopping along roots over mud and water, I slipped and landed shin first on my hiking pole and putting a slight bend into the end of it. My shin was throbbing but nothing was seriously hurt. On the next section of boardwalk I was able to bend my pole back close to straight by wedging it between two boards.

As we reached the first campsite, “Campers”, the sky cleared up substantially. We checked out the campsite and realized we were the first ones there. We got an amazing spot in a sheltered clearing, and decided not to push further that day. Instead, we set up camp and I built the biggest fire I could.

As more and more people showed up, I made more and more friends. Everyone appreciated the fire, and slowly a ring of soaked boots materialized around it. After days of rain, it was nice to dry off around a fire and chat with all the friends we had made. It was also a little funny to see a bunch of hikers on day two while we were on day five; we felt like hardened warriors looking at new recruits. It is amazing the air or arrogance three hard days of hiking will give me.

We discussed the following day’s hike around Owen Point. Our options were to get up very early in the morning and hike in the dark to catch the morning low tide, or we could get a late lazy start, catch the evening low tide and risk setting up camp in the dark. Our party decided to get a late start and risk setting up camp in the evening. It seemed safer than hiking the rough bush trail in the dark in the morning.

After the point, we were told, is some serious bouldering and log clambering. We were up for it and asked another hiker, Lianne, whom we actually met on the bus ride, if she wanted to join up with us as going it alone didn’t seem safe, and four people struck me as more fun than just three. Our group of four also joined up with two other friends we had made on the rainy nights, Eric and Jarek. After a late night of chatting and enjoying the fire, we turned in knowing we had no reason to be up early the next day.

Day 6- Campers to Thrasher

I woke up early, for no particular reason. I moseyed around the campsite, took in the view, packed up slowly, and had some breakfast. Once everyone was ready, we slowly left camp. We all ended up leaving camp around the same time. It was Erin, Tess, me, Lianne, Eric, Jerek, and a group of four from Saskatchewan, whom we referred to as “The Prairie Boys”. I have to give them credit. It was an older gentleman, his two adult sons, and his son-in-law, and this was the first big hike for most of them. The patriarch, Tom, had bad knees with a limited range of motion, but that didn’t stop him. I think he pounded out that hike by sheer force of will. It was impressive and I hope I can do that when I find myself at his age.

As we hiked, we slowly separated apart, as we all hike at different speeds. After a bit of bush hiking, our group met up with Jarek, Eric, and Lianne on a large rock shelf on the beach, where we would wait for the tide to go down. At this point the weather was amazing, the sun was shining and heat was really coming off of that rock. We pulled our gear out and spread it to dry in the sun. Erin came over and informed me it was time to wash my shirt. I knew she was right because I walked upwind of one of the guys and he exclaimed: “Wow, someone smells ripe!” I gave Erin my button up shirt and she took it to the shore for a wash, I then decided I best wash my t-shirt too. I wrung them both out as best I could, I hung my button up on my hiking poles to dry and slid into my wet t-shirt. The sun dried it in minutes.

The ladies went for a swim in a little pool a few hundred feet down the beach, and I tried to start a little fire, with no luck. While we sat and waited, the patriarch of the Prairie Boys came down to say hello and have a look at the sea. They had decided to take the bush trail to the campsite instead of the beach as the bouldering struck them as inadvisable for a man who’s had two knee replacements. After he left, everyone just laid around.

Tess and Erin had a bit of a nap (as I mentioned in Part 1, those two can sleep anywhere). I sat on a log that did a great impression of a bench, put my headphones in, and drifted into some deep unknown level of relaxation. It was just amazing, I had been so tired, wet, and beaten down, and sitting in that sunlight, on that log, listening to music, was the most relaxed I had ever felt in my life.

Suddenly, a whistle cut the silence around me. We all jumped to our feet. We could hear yelling, whistles and air horns. Everyone who had bear spray grabbed it, and Jarek grabbed a small knife he kept on his pack. We stood there listening and suddenly he bolted up the trail, knife in hand, toward the noise. Not thinking, I just followed him. Luckily, Lianne, with bear spray, followed us. At the top of the hill where the trails met, we stopped and listened.. nothing.

Suddenly we heard yelling from where we just were. We bolted back down the trail to find we had missed the action all together. It turned out that the bear had been scared off the trail above (by the Prarie Boys, we would later learn), and wandered down to the beach. When it wandered out onto the rock shelf, Erin, Tess, and Eric made enough noise for it to go away. I was told didn’t seem afraid or angry… more incovenienced than anything. We had broken a rather important rule of bear encounters, always stay with the group. Splitting up is a bad idea for a lot of reasons, one of them being the risk of scaring the bear from one group into another and making it feel trapped.

After that excitement, Erin and Tess made some coffee and we waited a little longer for the tide. Finally, it was low enough to be passable. It was a short hike across hard, flat, occasionally slippery rocks to Owen Point. Upon arriving, we had to wait a little more for the tide to go down. Once it was low enough we walked through a beautiful cave. Many photos were taken.

Shortly after the point, we reached the bouldering section we had heard tell of. It was rough going, but I found it fun. I put my hiking poles away and put on some gloves and really went for it. The guys had really pulled ahead of us at by this time. After a lot of climbing rocks and logs, we finally saw it, a campfire on the beach.

We arrived about a half hour before sunset. We set up our campsite at the last stop on our hike, the campsite “Thrasher”. We joined the guys at the fire, and shortly after that, the Prairie Boys came rolling in off the trail. They regaled us with their version of the bear encounter. We had a good last night, talking and making friends.

This day was undoubtedly the highlight of my trip and the best day I had had in a very long time. We all agreed, the rain was a good thing. Without it we wouldn’t have appreciated the day as much, and it gave us a real feeling of earning that hike. That night, Erin and I slept with the tent fly open, so we could look out at the ocean. The moon was full and bright, and a sailboat had anchored just off the beach, it was the perfect end to an amazing day.

Day 7- Thrasher to Pub

We all agreed it would be best to get up early to make sure we didn’t miss the ferry back to the end of the trail. We said our goodbyes to the Prairie Boys who had places to be after the hike, while our three remaining trail friends informed us their vehicles had beer in them. It didn’t take much for us to agree to meet up with them at the end of the trial for a tailgate party.

The trail was another slog through the bush, with quite a bit of climbing up and down, but it was an easy trail to see, even if a bit tricky at times. At least it wasn’t raining. On the hike out, I managed one last slip and fall, this time, bending my other pole nearly 90-degrees. It was somewhat comical but quite embarrassing as it happened while I was trying to get around some hikers going the other way.

We hit the last ladder at the end of the trail. It was tall and almost perfectly vertical, somehow that really makes it scary, like you’re being pulled off of it. We laid down on the pebbled beach and waited for our friends to join us. They weren’t far behind. I put on some music for us all to listen to while we waited for the ferry. Eric, after climbing down the ladder, pulled a rope that raised a float to signal the ferry… good thing someone reads the signs, who knows how long us goofs might have waited there.

While we waited for the ferry, I got everyone’s social media contact so we could be real life friends. Then, there was nothing to do but skip rocks, a skill I have clearly let diminish over the years. I was also introduced to “Jack-Knifing”. The goal is to throw a rock into the water with as small of a splash as possible. Typically you throw the rock high with a lot of backspin.

At long last, the boat came and took us to our waiting vehicles. We drove to the trail office to let them know we had survived. I informed them of our bear encounter she replied “Oh, he’s usually not dissuaded that easily”… comforting. We enjoyed a drink in the parking lot and agreed to meet at the local Port Renfrew pub for some food. I had been dreaming about that chicken burger all week… It was everything I thought it would be, as was the company and conversation.

We said our goodbyes and went our separate ways, all of us having grown, I believe, as people for completing this hike. I also think that having made friends on the trail added significantly to the experience. I also have to note that I am very glad we didn’t shorten our trip by a day. We would have missed a lot on those last two days. I guess there is something to be said for toughing it out and maybe suffering a bit for the experience.

For those that are curious, this is what my trail journal looked like; just basic point form highlights. The writing is rough because I already have ugly writing, and because a lot of it was done in a tent, lying on my back, writing against my palm for stability.

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