West Coast Trail

Doing something you don't normally do is frequently fraught with stress.  It's the unknown, the unpredictable, the what-ifs, that freak a person out.

Hiking somewhere in a climate you're unaccustomed to can be challenging.  So you prepare by reading about the place, listening to what others, more experienced hikers, have to say.

And then, there we were, taking our first steps on the 75 kilometer long West Coast Trail.

The beach section of the northern start of the WCT.

This trip was starting on September 7th.  It hadn't rained significantly in nearly three months, but the first day of our trip was the start of rain for four of the next seven days. We ducked under cover at the Pachena Lightstation for lunch.  The rain was coming down, something we were very unused to coming from the hinterlands of Eastern Oregon (average annual precipitation is 40 cm [16 inches]).

We met a Parks Canada ranger heading north, as we were strolling south, who said he opened the Darling River camps and we were welcome to stay there.   The place had been closed the previous five weeks due to an unruly black bear hanging around the campground. We were planning on staying at Michigan, but with only two extra kilometers, we decided to do it, and we were rewarded with solitude.  Michigan, on the other hand, was packed with campers.

Solitude at Darling River.

The weather during day two, between Darling and Tsusiat Falls Camp, was overcast but seldom rainy.  The trail stayed about the same as the first day, but with an increase in the number of ladders.  The rumor we had heard was some of the greatest stretch of ladders were just out of Pachena, the northern start of the trail, but they can be avoided by walking along the beach, should the tide be low enough.   So we missed many of the ladders the first day.

Ladders, and more ladders.

Even the quality outhouses had to be climbed.

We had never hiked at sea level before, but were amazed at how easy it was to breathe. One surprising thing, when you consider you're hiking along the coast, is how much elevation and how much exposure you get to encounter.  There are cliffs, and invariably you need to go up or down them.  Hence the ladders, bridges, and cable car crossings.

The view from a bridge.

When we arrived at Tsusiat Falls there was only one other person camped there, a middle aged man named Russ.  We walked on to give him some space, and about four hundred meters beyond the outhouse, was a very nice overhang with a view of the ocean.  We set up camp, relaxed for an hour, then went back to get water from the Falls.  Holy smoke! There were people and tents everywhere!

We usually backpack in remote areas that are not very frequented by many tourists.  So when I see a camping area that is packed with tents and people, I am amazed.

We felt we had the best site--out of any rain and away from the throng of people.  Nobody ever thought about joining us, even the hikers from the south heading north.  They probably didn't know that the campsites were just around the corner, or that there were hoards of other campers there.  But who knows?  Maybe some backpackers enjoy camping in a crowd.

A dry camp about 400 meters south of Tsusiat Falls.

Day three was a day of rain.  There was about 50 millimeters (2 inches) of rain that fell.  It was coming down in sheets, just like in a Hollywood movie.  The first half of today's hike was along the beach, and the wind, and the rain, were blowing into our faces.  No tailwind today.  The forest trail was technical--roots, mud pits, rotten boardwalks, the works.


We struggled and made seven kilometers, arriving at Nitinat Narrows just before lunch. What a handy place to pass the rest of the day--drying out next to a wood stove.  No images of the hike today all because of the life and death struggle we were battling with the rainfall.

Nitinat Narrows Restaurant and good place to hang out in the rain.

Bonilla Point Camp was our fourth night and the day had been rather pleasant for going on a stroll. The weather was not raining and there was very little wind.  The trail was getting slowly more technical.  Some would say the trail was getting worse, but I value the wilderness character of hard trails.  If the trail was easy, everyone would be doing it, and I prefer hiking without hoards.

Beach walking with only our footprints.

Technical moves were needed to transition from beach to forest trail.

We beach walked.  We cobble walked. We walked logs. We waded through mud pits. We forest walked. We climbed down ladders. We walked across bridges. We climbed up ladders.  We crossed a major river by pulling ourselves across in a cable car.  We walked on good boardwalks and terrible boardwalks.

One more river to cross.

Carmanah lightstation.

The edge of the littoral zone.

One of the few glimpses of the sun we had in seven days.

We were the first to stake out a place at Bonilla Point campsites, and we set up right in the middle of a bunch of vacant spaces.  Nice, we thought.  Within an hour people from both directions were arriving and setting their tents up within spitting distance of us.  It seemed way to close for comfort, at least from people use to the big open.

Day five brought rain.  Not quite as much as two days earlier, but almost.  It was pouring buckets, as we like to say in Eastern Oregon, so we only made ten kilometers, compared to sixteen yesterday.

Strolling south between showers.

This is the day of falls.  Not waterfalls, but humans losing contact with the earth momentarily, before gravity kicks in and pulls you back.  One slip allowed me to get about a meter above the ground before I was pulled back, and landed squarely on my left butt cheek.  Another fall occurred when I was transitioning from a log to the muddy trail and I planted my right trekking pole, only to have it plunge 50 centimeters into the soft soil, causing me to loose my balance, toppling me over, wrenching the pole to the point of snapping.  Curses.  A broken pole.

C had fallen a couple days prior by mis-stepping on a rotten boardwalk, and being tossed to the ground.  Just as I was breaking my pole in a fall, she was slightly ahead, slipped on a root, and landed sprawled on the ground.

Roots and Ladders, a popular kids board game.

We were going to try to make it to Campers campground, but the rain, and the falls, had slowed us down, in addition to the technical trail (notice I did not say it was a bad trail). Cable car crossings of the "creeks" or as us Eastern Oregonians like to say, major rivers, also took a little bit of time.  But it was one of the few times we sat down and took a break. Mostly it was too wet to sit on anything, so we sludged on through the muck, mud and quagmire.

We were the first at Cullite Cove Camp so we found the best place to place our tent, which happened to be the only flat place under a protected overhang.  Soon other hikers were showing up, and looking lustfully at our dry site.

Cullite Cove Camp, briefly in the sunshine.

End of another day on the WCT.

Once again we were the first to break camp and start hiking.  It seems like most people, on this trail at least, sleep in, and then get into camp in the evening.  This allows us to hit the campsites first and find the best place.  You snooze, you don't get the best campsite.

Endless ladders, endlessly.

Roots and mud.  What more do you want in a trail?

The first half of todays hike was in the forest.  It was a well worn track through mostly mud, punctuated by roots, logs, occasional ladders and various stages of rotting boardwalk.

Our timing was off for the second half of the hike today.  Had we made it to Beach Access A or B at a few hours either way of low tide we could have walked on the beach to the final campsite at Thrasher Cove.  As it turned out, we were destined to stay on the forest trail the entire day.  Turned out to be a great trail.

M O R E roots and mud!

Hiking on top of downed trees solves the problem of getting your feet muddy.

Hiking as a tightrope walker would.

It became a matter of perspective.

Now, why didn't we take a picture of it?  It was a black bear only 10 or 12 meters below the trail, busily eating red huckleberrys.  We probably wouldn't have seen it had it not been waving a branch back and forth as if it wanted to be noticed.  And there it was, although our views were obstructed by all of the other shrubs between us and it, it would have made for a picture.  We kept moving, and the bear, we believe, never saw, heard, nor smelled us.

A little off the ground.

Six more kilometers till camp.

We hiked eleven kilometers this day, and when C found a wide spot next to the trail very close to Hobbs Creek, we decided to set down roots for the night.  It was 4:30 and we were tired.  There would have been another km to the junction and then a km down to Thrasher Cove camp, and we decided this site was too nice to pass up.  It reminded us of camping in the Cascade Mountains.  And nobody passed us that night, nor did anyone pass us in the morning.  We had the place to ourselves.

The camp at 69 kilometers.  Couldn't ask for a better place in the woods.

Our last day on the trail, and it was all downhill (JK).  It was only six kilometers but the anticipation of getting to the end made the time seem longer.   Fog was in the air, through the trees and just about everywhere.  It made for an almost mystical hiking experience. The forest had been harvested years ago, maybe a hundred years ago.  An abandonded donkey engine sat next to the trail, rusting.  These machines were hauled everywhere to provide an engine to yard logs to the landing, where they were then taken to the mill.

There are over one hundred identified bridges along the trail.

Some logs are easier to get on top of than others.

Expecting Frodo to come romping through the woods.

What's a donkey engine doing in a place like this?

More down, across, and up the other ladder trail.

The ladders all along the West Coast Trail seemed to be in fairly good shape.  There was never a time where we thought the ladder wasn't going to hold us.  The rungs were all strong and durable, which is more than we could say for about half of the boardwalks we traversed.  Many of the boardwalks were  not even usable, so hikers would walk adjacent to the old boardwalk, or walk on top of the broken boards.

One last ladder.

At the ferry landing for our final water crossing, we asked the others waiting if they had taken any falls, spills, slips, or crashes on their hike.  Every single person had fallen at some place along the trail, at least once.  It made me feel a little better about my slips along the West Coast Trail.

It had been seventy-five kilometers of arduous hiking.  Maybe some of the hardest we'd ever done.  And it was over.  We had completed the trail.

Now that we've returned to civilization we've been thinking one thing...

We need to do it again!