British Columbia

Adventures on the West Coast Trail

Marge and daughter Carol -July 2000

We originally came to British Columbia to hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, however when we arrived here, we found too much snow and ice on the final section of the PCT from Rainy Pass to Manning Park, B.C. I had hiked "The West Coast Trail" in l995 and at that time I said I would never do it again, but I think my memory left me in order to do something that my daughter had not hiked.

There are no words to describe this trail, you have to book ahead and pay 125 Canadian Dollars for the privilege of hiking the trail, it is usually booked up for the summer months by May 31st. They do however, let six non-reserved people go on at each end of the trail, each day. This is how we got on. You can start this trail from either end; we chose to hike South to North.

The trail has about 600 feet elevation and is 75K (46 1/2 miles). Sounds like a piece of cake huh? My daughter thought we would be out in five days easily. The first day we hiked 4K (2 1/2 miles) tops, this was due to checking in and also taking our turn on a small boat which takes you to the trailhead. More of it was due to my slowness and apprehension of my leg. I had broken my leg on the PCT in May of this year and this was the first real hike since the break. I was scared to drop down on the leg and was favoring it.

Carol finds an Anchor

The first night we camped just off the trail on a small rocky spot by a creek. The trail follows an old telegraph line and we hiked south to north to

get the hardest part over during the first three days.

The first day the trail was a root system that goes up and down and you are scrambling with your hands on the roots. This is coupled with lots and lots of mud, which never dries up. We were very lucky, there was no rain during the six days or on the seventh morning as we walked out, normally there is rain at some time on this hike.

Next you have the ladders, these you climb up and down in each drainage or ravines. There would be combinations of three or four ladders each side in the deep drainages. One of the ladder combinations I could not climb with my pack on, it had about 44 rungs on the first ladder and that was too much for me in one climb. Also, it went straight up the cliff instead of leaning into the hill. Here my daughter took my pack up and then climbed back down and took her own up.

I could manage this particular ladder with my pack if the ladders had leaned into the hill, but this one did not and the steps seemed further apart. My son did the same thing for me on my earlier hike of this trail on this same ladder.

There were numerous log crossing, some which were kind of high; I managed to walk on all of them. There were three river crossing done in cable cars that were really hard to pull up, long suspension bridges and miles of slippery (when wet) rotten boardwalk, and of course the mud holes all the way. On this trip we found a number of new little bridges and new boardwalks. We complimented the trail crew on these new additions. There were a few fords of small creeks that drain into the Pacific Ocean.

At one of the cable car crossings, we noted new timbers making up the platform. You climb up a ladder to get to the platform and then pull the box into the platform, get into it, push off and pull yourself across. About a month earlier, my long time friend and hiking companion Pat, was hiking the trail with her son when the tower and platform collapsed while they were on it. She had several cracked vertebrae and was taken out in a helicopter to the Victoria hospital. The year previous she and I had hiked 200 miles together on the PCT, Sections-Aqua Dulcie to Walker Pass.

There were numerous creeks that emptied out into the ocean, so fresh water was plentiful. The best part was the beach, here we camped most nights at established locations that had an outhouse and we were able to have a fire each night, so we cooked over the fire. My titanium pot is now really black.

When the tide is way out you are able to walk on the ocean shelf which is a real hard surface, but watch out for that green stuff, it is very slippery. I fell once in a large pot hole filled with sea water, but everything dried off as I walked. Everything in my pack was encased in plastic so nothing got wet.

The wet sand right by the surf was good to hike in, but you had to watch your tide charts as there were surge channels and you did not want to get stranded between two of them. I did not like walking in the heavy sand, some of it reminded me of the sand on the PCT trail in Southern California.

As we came around one point on the beach we came to “Chez Monique's”. When I had hiked the trail in l995 this was a small hot dog and beer stand. Now it is a large frame encased in plastic walls and assorted timbers. You can order hamburgers and she had a huge supply of various goodies, drinks and groceries. There were a number of hikers at Chez Monique's, some coming from the North and some from the South, it was time for lunch and the hamburgers were being fried.

At one point in the hike, a small river came down from a high, wide cliff in the form of a marvelous waterfall. We were the first ones into the camp area that day and we could see for miles in both directions on the beach, so it was skinny dipping for Carol and me under the waterfall, actually it felt like a pressure washer. But we got clean. Everyone, as they arrived had some sort of bath at this location.

On the trail and on the beach there would be old 'buoys' hung up to let you know where the beach and trail access was, so when ever possible we walked the beach. (No mud). This part of the west coast is well noted for shipwrecks and there are parts still lying on the beach. There were 3 lighthouses in a twenty mile stretch. I saw what I thought was a big yellow peeled log, so decided it would be a good place to rest. Well it was not a log but a 'beached' dead whale.

Our last night was terrific, we camped on the beach, it was bright moonlight on our camp and on the water, so we sat up in our sleeping bags, inside the tarp-tent, and watched the big cruise ships going to Alaska.

The entire trip was a delight and my daughter and I had a terrific time together. She was in charge of hanging the food and making the fires. The only time I saw a look of something or other on her face was at the Canadian gas pumps. We took turns paying for the gas and she got the first fill in Canada. It was .72 cents a liter and that fill was $38.00 but I told her when you factor in the exchange rate, it would be okay on her charge card. We have lots of fond memories of this hike but I do not need to do it another time, twice is enough.

The West Coast trail was a test for my leg, I wore the elastic stocking with a soft brace with plastic sides that laced up my foot and went right into my hiking boot. The first day I was so apprehensive I could hardly stand on that leg while dropping down from roots etc. On the third day my daughter said I was stepping out and not favoring the leg.

We were lucky with the weather, lucky that neither of us got hurt on the roots, or fell off any ladders. We were careful.

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