West Coast Trail, Part III: The Flood

Apologies for a much delayed post on the continuing West Coast Trail adventures.  Some knee surgery with complications made it rough to even get to my computer for a while, but thankfully I’m doing much better now and am well on my way to playing ultimate again next year (fingers crossed!).

Back to the trail, the rain continued on and off, and we tackled even taller ladders, a long suspension bridge (I thought that was fun) and a chilly river crossing.   We managed to ride out one particularly nasty horizontal rain spell with burgers and hot cocoa at Chez Monique’s, a welcome food haven on day 4.

Lots of beautiful scenery.

Dev and Jason not impressed by the size of their supposed 2-man tent.

My “it’s not raining!”  smile.

 The toughest part of the trail came the evening of day 4 while camping at Walbran.  We dragged ourselves into camp at close to 7 pm and there were few potential camp sites left.  We made sure we were well above the high tide line and set up our tents just as a major storm rolled in.    As the winds whipped up and the rain fell harder, Dev couldn’t keep the flame going on our little camp stove.   The others still like quoting my cry of “Deeeeeeeev!  Screw dinner!” as we all retreated to our tents sustaining ourselves on trail mix and builder’s bars.   Even worse was the realization that I had forgotten to stow away our food before bed and had to take off my nice warm pajamas, put my stinky wet clothes back on again and struggle through the wind and rain to find the bear cache for our food bags.

We all settled down for a stormy night and I was just about to turn my headlamp off for the night when I noticed my hiking shoes in my tent vestibule were floating.  Apparently the storm sustained 50 mm of rain / hour for a short while which was enough to flood the nearby river and our campsite.  We frantically moved to higher ground in the middle of the night and thankfully managed to avoid completely soaking our down sleeping bags.  That night we played the game of “how much money would you be willing to pay right now to be magically transported to a warm, dry room with a bed?”.

Here I am standing where our tent was the night before.  By  morning the river had already retreated back to its normal banks.

 The day after the storm dawned cloudy but no rain.   Our luck was changing!  Stay tuned for our triumphant, sunny finish.

West Coast Trail, Part II: The Slog

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.

The first 10 km or so to the Pachena Point Lighthouse were fairly flat and uneventful and we managed a good pace.  Over lunch however the skies clouded over and the first rain drops started falling.  Raincoats and pack covers on!

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 2^nd 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. 

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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!

West Coast Trail, Part I

First installment of the long-delayed West Coast Trail pictures!   The journey actually starts before beginning the trail itself.  There were a few logistics to take care of getting from Vancouver (actually Alberta for most of the crew) to the West coast of Vancouver Island.   Flights for some, a ferry ride for Rod and I, followed by a re-group in Duncan and a massive re-pack for the Albertans.  I’ve never seen so much trail mix, beef jerky, tent bits, Gore-Tex everything, and duct tape laid out before.

Next was an early morning drive across-island to Port Renfrew followed by a bumpy bus 5 hour ride along a logging road to Bamfield.   We tossed the disc a little at Pachena Bay trail head, did our trail orientation (“never turn your back to the ocean”) and hung out on the beach enjoying the sunshine.  I hoped I wouldn’t screw up the tide tables during the hike.

We stayed the night in relative comfort at a Bamfield guest house.   A little expensive for what you got, but it was wonderful to have a real bed, burgers for dinner, and the novelty of a sink toilet (recycles the water used to wash your hands in order to flush the toilet).

One upside to our Bamfield accommodation was that it was within walking distance to the breathtaking Brady beach.  It did not disappoint with a magnificent sunset and views of the ocean and surrounding mountains (see title photo and below).

Bamfield

To get around Bamfield you need to take a “water taxi” ($5 per person) from one shore to the other.   I think “water canoe”would be more appropriate!

How could I resist Catastrophe Manor?

Practicing my Tsunami evacuation sprint…hopefully it won’t be necessary for the trail ahead.

After a hearty breakfast the next morning we were off!  Here we are Day 1 all clean, and dry, and happy!   From the left:  Leah, Jason, Jayanti, Rod, Kiran and Dev.   Stay tuned for more…. 

Wedgemount Lake, BC

Happy new year!  The last five months of 2013 were exciting times for me with multi-day hikes (this one as well as the West Coast Trail) and a trip to India/Nepal.  I’ll try to be brief with my next few entries so that we can get to exotic southern Asia pictures sooner. 

This hike up to the lovely turquoise Wedgemount Lake was one of the tougher ones I’ve done with an elevation gain of 1200+ metres in 7 km.   I set out with Rod and his cousins, who were doing it as a daytrip.    If you do attempt this hike be careful of the numerous ground wasps which got Rod, one cousin and I.  Ouch!

The way up is quite the grind (especially with a heavy pack) and not too spectacular scenery-wise, but you’re rewarded at the top with views of the beautiful glacial-fed lake in the shadow of the massive Wedge mountain, the highest in the Garibaldi mountain range. 

The BC Mountaineering Club has built a great little hut up on Wedge.  It was windier that it looks in the evening and we had to go inside to keep our cooking flame from going out!  The numerous tent platforms are also a godsend (do you see the size of the rocks lying around?). 

Dinner went smoothly although someone forgot to bring the J-cloths for doing dishes and decided to sacrifice his clean underwear instead.

And more lovely views of the surrounding glaciers, wildflowers, and sunset.  

In the middle of winter here in Vancouver I definitely miss this sunshine.

It was tough to leave Wedge, but even tougher on the knees and quads going down the mountain.  The only thing worse than a steep 1200 metres going up is the same 1200 metres going down….  It seriously took me a week for my quads to recover and to do stairs without looking like an elderly lady.