We are the only people in camp when we return from our walk to the Carmanah Giant, everyone else has walked the 30 mins to the Indian Reservation where a burger can be bought for $15 and beer for $7. We watch a couple of whales surfacing out in the bay until the sun goes down, completely happy with our de-hydrated hiking food. It occurs to us that we are not tempted by the burgers and beer because we are not sacrificing anything to be here. If we wanted to be eating burgers and drinking beer, we’d be sitting on a couch doing that.

Beautiful in the sunshine

The next morning we set out to hike around the point below the Carmanah Lighthouse. The lighthouse keeper tells us that many people turn back from the seaweed covered cliff, which makes us all the more determined.

At times we climbed vertical rock to stay ocean side

At one point the going gets so hairy we all assess the situation and give the OK before we move forward as a group. Rock climbing with a pack tuns out to be quite the challenge and I don’t move a muscle when a wave comes in while my foot is on a low rock, perfectly happy to get a soaked boot instead of scrambling and maybe slipping into the waves.

Hiking the beach

We continue along the beach, rock shelf and finally move inland again. We are dumbfounded by the state of disrepair the boardwalks are in. Broken and rotting boards are everywhere, the entire structures are slanted in all directions, they move under our feet, have rusty nails sticking out all over and are extremely slippery. None of us has ever seen a trail in such a state of decay and agree it would be much safer to just remove the rotting boardwalks altogether. It is becoming very clear why there is almost one rescue per day on this trail.

Mike amused at the state of the boardwalks

We arrive at the Nitnat Narrows ferry to see hikers eating salmon, crab and drinking expensive beer. This is another place the natives have found their captive audience and are making a killing. The Nitnat Narrows are a tidal inlet that feed a lake and as such have massive incoming and outgoing currents as the water lags behind the tides. We heard a story of one guy swimming across, but it’s not something we are about to try.

The trail got all Indiana Jones at times

The official trail map has one interesting bullet point we discuss at length:

• Assume all surfaces are slippery

We decide the word ‘assume’ could safely be removed after we all take a fall or two. My best effort was while walking along the ocean side rock shelf, in about two or three centimeters of water. After slipping a couple of times and slowing down, I completely loose it and land on my butt and pack in the shallow water getting completely soaked and putting a big dent in my pride. When Mike sees me he bursts out laughing and the three of us are instantly in hysterics. Roger loves that our first reaction is to burst out laughing at each other, then ask if the fallen party is injured.

Mike & Roger

We continue inland and on the beaches to Tsusiat Falls, our campsite for the night after 21 km. We’ve been told the falls can be very spectacular during a high rainfall year, but they are not much more than slightly impressive during our visit. Mike declares he has a cold and puts himself to bed the minute I get the tent set up. At first, he won’t even get out of bed to eat dinner – but I finally manage to convince him to eat something and he’s happier for it.

The not so mighty Tsusiat Falls

It rains overnight and into the morning, but me manage to pack-up in a brief respite and after an hour of walking we can see the day will be clear. We only have 13 km to walk for the day and really enjoy ourselves – relaxing into the hiking routines and taking our time at lunch. Sitting around the campfire at Michigan Creek that night all the northbound hikers are in high spirits – we have only one short day to hike.

Sunset behind a cable car (Carmanah Creek)

Our fifth and final day we wake to seriously heavy rain and try to keep our spirits high by saying it wouldn’t be an authentic West Coast Trail Experience™ without some solid rain. By the time we cook breakfast and pack-up we are completely soaked, though knowing we have only 12 km to finish gets us going.

At times the boadwalks are endless

The trail here is all inland and although it’s not as difficult as the other end of the trail, all of the mud patches are deeper, the surfaces are slipperier and most times a small creek runs down the trail. It makes us all realize how different the hike would be if it rained solidly for five days – we are covered in mud and it’s next to impossible to keep everything dry. Passing hikers walking in the other direction I notice how clean they look and how nice they smell. Is that makeup I see?

I smile ear to ear as it occurs to me I am now the guy that reeks of campfire.

Roger, Mike & Dan at the end of the trail!

-Dan

Much like the Chilkoot, the First Nations people of the area had been using the trail for hundreds of years before foreign sailing ships came into the picture. The rugged coastline claimed many unsuspecting ships and so from 1888 to 1890 the government built a telegraph line on the trail in the hopes of saving lives through better communications. Twenty odd years later a second lighthouse was constructed and the trail was greatly improved to act as a life saving route for shipwreck victims. As technology improved shipwrecks became a thing of the past and the trail was abandoned until 1973 when it became part of the newly established Pacific Rim National Park.

Today the 75 km trail is by far the most famous in Canada, often making an appearance on lists of the world’s best hiking trails.

Port Renfrew seems to brew it’s own weather, mostly of the oceanside misty, damp kind. Our tent is soaking wet in the morning, which we think is rain but turns out to just be ocean mist/fog that settles on everything. Amped to get hiking we amble into the ranger station and discover we’ll have to wait until the following day before we can begin. The number of hikers per day is limited and a reservation cost an extra $25 each so we thought we would just wing it. While we’re there we pay the hiking fee of $160 each and sit through the hour or so introduction which is useful, but really only makes us wish we were hiking today. We spend the day organizing gear, walking around town and drinking cheap coffee.
Camp for the night is beachside and free

Early the next morning we drop off my Jeep in a secure parking lot (for $18) and get a ride to the starting point – a ferry across Gordon River. Everyone is hugely entertained weighing their packs when we discover a set of scales hanging nearby. Mike at I ring in at 36 and 40 pounds respectively, which is 10 pounds lighter than the next nearest hiker. One guy about half my size has 62 pounds. Ouch. The other hikers are keen to talk about how long we’ve planned for the hike and are quite taken aback when we shrug our shoulders and grin our usual answer to such questions; “As long as it takes”.

Mike and Dan starting The West Coast Trail

Happy at my own pace, Mike quickly disappears into the misty fog that surrounds us. We’ve been told over and over the first 10 km we encounter are the hardest of the entire trail. Most people prefer to start at the other end and cover this ground on their last day when their packs are lighter – I am happy to tackle it while eager and fresh. Quickly I am in the thick of it; mud, tree roots, uphill, downhill, bridges and ladders and all of it very very slippery. It’s been one of the driest summers on record, so I can only imagine what it’s like in a rainy year. Passing people hiking in the opposite direction I notice how tired and muddy they all are, not to mention they all reek of campfire.

The scale of the trail...

By the time I catch up with Mike he has made a friend, Roger from the Netherlands who moves at a similar rapid pace. In many places along the trail we can choose between staying inland or hiking along beaches. We’ve been told over and over again to take the beach option whenever we can, so we head down a string of ladders to Thrasher Cove, our lunch stop.

Dropping down some stairs

Mike cooking lunch in the sun

Hiking around Owen Point requires the tides to be just right, so we wait a couple of hours in the amazing sunshine and head out right as the tide is going down. Some great rock-hopping is required and throughly enjoyed by all. Owen Point has beautiful colored rock formations and we stumble upon an alternate trail that has us use ropes to go up vertical rock and over the still too-high tide.

Mike in the rock formations at Owen Point

We follow the beach around, head inland for a few kilometers, use our first cable car with much calamity and arrive at Camper Bay, our stop for the night after 12 km.

Roger and Mike in a cable car

The number of people here is mind-blowing – I count 14 tents in view when we arrive, with more being set up by the minute. We bump into some people from our ferry earlier in the day, including the guy with 62 pounds. They hiked inland for the entire day and did not look like they were having any fun at all on the rooty, muddy trail.

Mike navigating the endless mud

The next day we have a stretch of inland hiking that has an impressive vertical drop of about six ladders immediately followed by six more straight back up.

Going up?

Navigating the one and only river crossing on the trail is disappointingly only a trickle that we walk straight across.

We love these high logs, called 'Nerve Testers'

Walking along the beach and rock shelf is a great way to finish the 16 km for the day at Carmanah Creek campsite. We quickly throw everything in our tents and start walking up Carmanah Creek, happy to be rid of our packs. Jeff from Seafun told us about the world’s largest sitka spruce tree, the Carmanah Giant which lies only a kilometer up the creek from the campsite. Rock-hopping with tired legs is hilarious and we all inevitably get a boot wet in the creek, laughing the whole time. The trunk of the giant is much much bigger than any other tree at 3 meters, and even though it’s right at river level, it towers over all the other trees growing higher up the valley wall.

The Carmanah Giant complete with tree hugger

Dan & Mike beach hiking

There is plenty more to come on this one…

-Dan