Scale Replica Weekly

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The good vibes started the day before, in Vancouver. I had a long, relaxed conversation with my South Asian cab driver about Karma, the Golden Rule, and philosophies for living in society. The chat left both of us smiling.

My Pack. About 42 lbs, including water.

I hauled my backpack along with me for a meeting at the Children’s Hospital, which then sparked another nice discussion during my business meeting. The Dr. I was meeting with wished me a safe and transformative trip, and said that her son would be attempting the hike in a couple of years.

The next day in Victoria, Bonnie, my AirBNB host, had a nice breakfast of fresh berries and cream waiting for me at 5:30 AM and even offered to drive me to the shuttle. Again, good vibes.

My plan was to arrive the day before my reservation to get the transport and the orientation out of the way and get an early start for full day hike.

The WCT is a big deal, a gruelling 75 KM hike on a trail that has about a thousand ways to hurt you, many of which you probably haven’t planned for, such as wasp nests. Parks Canada says about 1% of hikers need to be evacuated, which would be one hiker every day or so. As such, anyone wanting to start the trail needs to attend a one hour orientation which covers the history of the trail, etiquette, how to get help, and current hazards.

The people on the shuttle and in the orientation were a nice group – a gang of four from New Jersey including a couple of firefighters, a family of four from BC with two young boys, about 10-12 years old, a couple from Ontario, and a solo hiker, Layla, from Germany.

As I was not scheduled to take the trail until the next day, I was prepared to camp overnight, but the timeline I had (four days before my shuttle at the end) was pretty ambitious, and the parks people recognized that two of us were hiking solo, so they let me onto the trail a day early. It also helped that there was a no-show from the Pachena (North) side.

The trail can be started from the South (Gordon River, near Port Renfrew) or North (Pachena Beach, near Bamfield). We started at the South end.

The southern portion is by far the more challenging. We were ferried across Gordon River to a tiny spit of land that is the start of the trail. It is surrounded by cliffs, and the only way out is straight up a ~40 foot ladder. It was tall enough to get my heart pounding and knees shaking, and the message was clear: this is your last chance to turn back.

Welcome to the WCT!

Pretty quickly we were into dense forest. Tangled roots and monster trees. We encountered occasional groups of hikers approaching the end of the trail from the North.

During one break we happened to notice a tree god, one of several on the trail, overlooking the forest. We also saw a couple of “donkey engines”. I haven’t looked up the definition of donkey engine. I prefer to preserve the mystery.

A rusted out donkey engine. And whatever this thing is.

Some mossy trees

Day one ended at Thrasher. 6 KM in four hours – ouch.

Thrasher Cove

No campfires were allowed at Thrasher, but we set up camp, had dinner then chatted a bit with Kirsten and Chuck, the couple from Ontario.

Layla, Kirsten, and Chuck

As it happened, I woke up with the sun, about 5:30 in the morning. It helped that I was still on EST, I suppose.

Breakfast for me was a mix of oatmeal and other grains (chia, hemp, poppy seeds, teff), powdered milk, cinnamon sugar, salt, and dehydrated fruit. Makes a pretty fine porridge. I perfected the recipe on previous hiking trips. It’s just enough to fill my coffee cup. When the porridge is done, my coffee goes in the same cup (only slightly chunky), and by the time I’m done with my coffee, my cup is clean(ish). No fuss, no muss.

Layla and I broke camp and set out for our day’s hike. We decided to stop at Camper Bay for lunch, then press on to Cullite Cove for our second night’s camp.

Given that my schedule was kind of ambitious, and that we didn’t know each other, I suggested to Layla that we hike together for the first couple of days (the hard parts) and that we split up after that if she wanted to take her time. In the end, we realized that it was a lot more fun to tackle all the ladders and cable cars together than to do them solo, and that we were pretty evenly matched in terms of fitness, so we stuck together for the whole trail.

Cullite Cove was a nice site, and we were able to make a campfire. Chuck and Kirsten joined us. We chatted about freeze-dried food and Ontario camping, and they shared a bit of maple whiskey. We were all flagging, so I failed to keep them awake long enough to see shooting stars. I saw one, then called it a night.

They call it "Fogust"

On the WCT scale, this boardwalk is about 7/10

Some of the trees were very, very big.

Crossing rivers could be by scrambling over rocks, by suspension bridge, by cable car, or by walking the plank.

The fog rolling into Camper Bay.

Day three took us from Cullite Cove to Cribs Creek, a long, tough day. Cribs is kind of the last staging ground before crossing a fairly long stretch which includes an Indian Reservation and no established campsites. We had to skip the burger at Monique’s because the tide was coming in and we needed to get to our campsite.

Early on Day four, as we left Cribs Creek, I made a key error reading the map. I thought that we needed to pass a specific point below high tide levels. It turns out, it wasn’t a point, but rather about a 1.5 km stretch of beach. I got my feet wet. At this point I guess I should comment on my footwear choice. I had debated between waterproof boots and trail running shoes, and settled on the latter. I suppose if I had been wearing boots I might have overtopped them, which would have been just as bad or worse. But either way, I got wet feet, and blisters started pretty much immediately.

Ladders, ladders, and more ladders.

These ladders lead down to the suspension bridge. You learn quickly that for every ladder you climb down there is another one waiting for you to climb up.

By WCT standards I give my hair a 7/10

Looking back on the ladders and suspension bridge.

And up another ladder.

But we were still smiling once we got to the beach!

Even the outhouses were a challenge.

The iconic sites we came for.

Whomping Willow's cousin, Dangerous Doug.

Later in the day, we crossed Nitinat Narrows, but first stopped for lunch at the Narrows. You can’t get fresher seafood unless you catch it in your own teeth.

Dave (I think that’s his name), gave Layla a nasturtium as a snack before lunch.

From about the Narrows on the hike got a bunch easier. We camped at Tsusiat falls. Firewood was sparse, but fortunately(?) someone had left a fire burning and we were the first ones to reach the campsite, so we claimed the site next to the fire.

This is not typical of the WCT boardwalks. This is a 10/10.

Day five from Tsusiat falls to Michigan was also pretty easy, but we stopped at Darling River for a couple of bars and a backpack break. I found that, in the last couple of days, the legs held up better than my shoulders, even though my pack was getting lighter. Maybe it’s because we were doing less climbing, meaning that my arms and shoulders were pretty much in the same position all day long. Another factor is that my pack is ultralight, without an internal frame, and tends to sag towards the end of hike.

Some deer tracks - Mama and baby.

And some wolf tracks following the aforementioned main course and dessert.

Nope, the deer snacks managed to avoid the wolf.

A tide pool full of goodies.

Just a cool looking tree.

It was hot at Michigan, and by that point my feet were pretty beat up. I spent a good hour sitting in the shade at the river soaking my dogs, eating soup. Later we stayed up as long as we could stand it, (almost until dark), and sighted a whale just off the shelf in front of our campsite.

Hiker tip: Get your drinking water from upstream of my feet, not downstream.

The last day, from Michigan out, is 12 KM. Since we needed to take a shuttle at 1:45 PM, we broke camp early to make sure we would get to the trailhead in time. This turned out to be unnecessary as we covered the 12 KM in a little over 3 hours (15 minutes per KM, compared to 40 minutes per KM on our first day).

The last day was my birthday. Fortunately I didn't have to trace this in the sand myself.

We were slightly delayed by a bear encounter on the trail between KM 2-3. We had just passed the wasp nest, and Layla was walking in front, when she stopped and said, “there’s a bear on the trail.” I told her to step behind me, while I stood my ground and tried to scare the bear off, using my big boy voice and banging my hiking sticks together. This did not intimidate the bear. If anything, it piqued his curiosity. He started to walk towards us.

The bear drawn by my Siren song...

“Get out of here buddy. We don’t have any food for you. Go eat some berries.”

Still walking towards us.

We stepped back slowly and made our way around a bend in the trail out of site of the bear. There was nowhere to get off the trail. We peeked around the bend, and saw that the bear was still approaching. At it’s closest, it was probably 40 feet or so from us.

I stepped back out where it could see us and made noise again, but this did not deter it. Finally Layla said, “OK bear, turn around.” The bear stopped, turned, and headed down the trail away from us.

We waited 5 or 10 minutes and then continued on. We didn’t see the bear again, but we did see a family of four who had just encountered a bear about a KM up the trail.

The last part of the trail can be done on the beach, but we stayed inland, tackling still more ladders, that I swear were just there to bookend the trail. We finally emerged, checked out at the ranger cabin, filed the bear report, and caught a cab into town for lunch. Out of respect for the other bus passengers, I bought a T-shirt at the gift shop so I could get out of my stinking WCT clothes.

How many returning hikers gorge themselves at the White Spot on the ferry back to Vancouver?