Second installment of the West Coast Trail. Or should I say the Wet Coast Trail…. Some Germans we met on Day 2 coming from
the opposite direction had only this message as what to expect ahead: “Life will be hard”. And
full of rain, and mud, and endless ladders.
Unfortunately,
making life even harder was that 2 out of our 3 stoves malfunctioned on the
first day, and the fuel types were not compatible. But enough complaining for now.
When we last left the merry group they had
just started on the 75 km trek from Bamfield to Port Renfrew. As one savvy blog-reader pointed out, Rod
decided to show his independence on Day 1 in the group photo being the only one
to leave his gators off (“I don't need no stinkin' gators. My shins
aren't afraid of a little mud, the rest of you are clearly just a bunch
of Lagerfeuer-1.Reihe-Sitzer”. This
is a first-class German girly-man insult if I do say so myself Mehmet! It means
people-who-sit-in-the-first-row-around-the-campfire – I am definitely among
them.) Rod decided that gators were a
good choice after all from Day 2 onwards.
But I digress.
Dev was
battling two severe ear infections and the end of a pink eye infection even on
Day 1. Here he shows off his
backpack-pharmacy.
No one wanted
to damage their camera during the ensuing deluge which lasted a constant 4 days
save for a 1 hour sunny respite on Day 3.
Here are a few shots which were snuck during short breaks in the
rain. I did enjoy the coast, the
rocks, the ocean, and walking along the beach.
The treed sections (unavoidable due to the tides) were painfully slow
however and filled with ankle-to-knee-deep mud pits. I started off as a “Matsch-Vermeider” (mud
avoider, another good German girly-man insult), but inevitably stopped caring
after stepping around the first few dozen.
Camping on the
beach! Unfortunately the wood was too
wet to have a campfire.
Puddles like
this one were typical…like every 10 metres!
For anyone looking to buy waterproof hiking boots, based on our combined
group experience those with the full-leather boots (including the tongue) fared
the best. Unfortunately I belonged to
the 2nd camp which had leather boots with a Gore-Tex tongue which
were pretty much soaked through (despite the gators) on Day 2.
Taking a break
on a nice long bench big enough for all 6 of us! Rod is not impressed.
The forecast
posted at Carmanah Pt. Lighthouse on Day 4.
Only more rain in sight…
Buoys were always a welcome sight since it meant we had reached
camp.
There were
lighter moments of course though! Everyone feels better with a hot meal in their
bellies and Leah enjoys a little air-guitar.
We also passed
the time trash-talking one another, where one of our favourites was the face
joke. E.g. Dev: “I hate these mud pits”, me: “You’re a mud pit”,
Dev: “Your face is a mud pit”.
Day 3 we took
a welcome break out of the rain at the Nitinat Narrows ferry crossing. I had the best baked potato of my life,
smothered in butter and accompanied by fresh, BBQ salmon.
Later that
afternoon we were also rewarded with a short 1 hour of blue sky. We took the opportunity to do silly poses and
ham it up.
The thrill of
many ladders, cable cars, and bridges in various stages of disrepair.
\
Getting ready
loading into our first cable car
A long way to
haul yourself over, but kind of fun too!
I forgot to give photo credits in the last
post, but thanks to Kiran and Rod who contributed the vast majority of the West
Coast Trail pics!
More adventures and better weather to come in
the next post. Plus I actually change
out of that smelly pink shirt which everyone must be sick of by now!
