West Coast Trail Part I

The WCT stretches for 75km along with the west coast of Vancouver Island, from Port Renfrew (south) to Bamfield (north). I've seen photos of it and have desperately wanted to hike it for a few years now. When Jodi, Mark, and Jodi's sister Jessica all said they were interested, there was no question: we were going!

The WCT began first as a set of native trails, then as a telegraph line, and was upgraded to a lifesaving trail in 1907 because of the incredible number of shipwrecks along the coast. This means that this is the 100th anniversary of the WCT, although I think it's only in the past few decades that it's caught on as a popular hiking destination. From what I've read, the trail was much more rugged, remote and 'raw' back in the 70s. It's been steadily upgraded with ladders, bridges, cable cars and bear caches, and also grown in popularity until in the 90s Parks Canada was forced to limit the number of hikers each year.

Because of this quota system, our first step towards hiking the trail was getting a reservation for an 'Overnight Use Permit.' Parks Canada releases reservations in one-month blocks, 3 months ahead of time. We wanted to hike in August, so we were on the phone hitting redial at 7am on June 1st. It took about 30 minutes to get through, but we had no problem getting our first choice of start dates.

We decided to start at the south end of the trail. The south end is the tough end (roots, mud, ladders) while the north is easy (flat trails and beach walking). One argument is to start at the north end so you ease into the hike and have light packs at the end for the tricky part. We decided that we would much rather get the hard part over with while we had lots of energy, and also so that we could look forward to an easy finish. In hindsight I'm very glad we started at the south end, and can't really understand the appeal of starting at the north.

We didn't need to buy much extra gear, although hiking poles and gaiters were a popular choice for most of us. Planning out meals was easy this time, because we had access to Jodi's family's dehydrator, and because I had learned a lot about packing lightweight food on my Stein Valley trip last year. Jessica came to stay with us a few days early and we got all the food and gear packed up.

DAY 1 (PORT RENFREW TO THRASHER COVE, 4h, 6km, forest with mud, roots, some ladders): Mark drove out and got us at 6am on Sunday Aug 26, and we easily made the 7am ferry to Victoria, which wasn't even half full. We stopped for an hour or so at Holly's apartment in Victoria to load up on a delicious breakfast (thanks Holly!), before heading towards Sooke, and then (on a very cool twisty, bumpy road) to Port Renfrew. We made it with lots of time to spare before our 1:30pm mandatory Parks Canada orientation. I parked the car at a Port Renfrew family's house - $4/day, which included a free ride back to the trailhead - not bad. The orientation was pretty informative and not too long, and we had crossed on the Gordon River ferry by 2:30pm.

We encountered mud on essentially the first steps of the trail, despite several days of hot dry weather before we started. The trail also started to climb right away - we would reach the highest point on the WCT today, 220m, before dropping back down to sea level for our first campsite at Thrasher Cove. We passed a lot of tired and smelly hikers going the opposite direction - a preview of us in 6 days! The trail went up and down a fair bit, with a decent amount of mud and roots (although not the worst of the trail by any means!). We climbed a few smaller ladders as well. It was certainly slow going - 4 hours to cover 6km! We didn't have many views along the trail, although we did come across an old rusted 'donkey engine' that used to be used for logging.

At the 70km mark (distances on the WCT count down from 75km, since they are measured starting at the north end), we veered off the main trail and took a very steep 1km side trail down to Thrasher Cove, which included a lot of long ladders. We arrived around 6:30pm. Thrasher Cove was a beautiful campsite, and fairly busy too. We had a filling dinner of fajitas, which was eyed hungrily by the hikers going the opposite direction. Luckily the campsite had a metal bear cache so we didn't have to hang our massive food sacks! We went to bed fairly quickly because we were planning on getting up crazy early next morning in order to catch the low tide for a beach section. We pitched our tents right at the high tide line, with only a small log between, so during the night I remember waking up and hearing the waves right beside the tent!

DAY 2 (THRASHER COVE TO CULLITE COVE, 11.5h, 12km, beach boulders, rocky shelf, LOTS of mud and ladders): 5:30am wake up! We were up and out of the tents while it was still dark out, and packed the tents up by headlamp. We decided against a warm breakfast and just had granola bars in the interest of speed. By the time everything was packed and we had started hiking, it was around 6:30am, and the sun was just rising.

The reason for our hastiness was that low tide was at 7am, and we needed to make it to Owen Point by about 10am, otherwise we would be held up by the tides for about 6 hours! The beach route was described as 'difficult and not for novices,' however, getting back to the alternate forest route would have involved a staggering climb up many ladders to rejoin the main trail. We took the beach route and I'm glad we did! Almost immediately we were walking through medium sized rocks, and within half an hour we were using our hands to scramble over and around truck-sized rocks.

The scrambling was tough because the rocks were wet, slippery, and barnacle covered. We all got small cuts on our hands, although fortunately nobody took any huge spills. We passed one group of older women who were having a great time scrambling over the rocks! By about 8:30am, we made it to Owen Point, where we found an incredible cave cut out of the sandstone by the waves.

We spent a while exploring, and then went around the corner to find that we had left the boulders behind, and now had the treat of walking on flat rock shelf! It was very easy going, although we often came across surge channels that were tricky to either cross (small ones) or skirt around (large ones). The surge channels were incredible - huge gashes cut into the hard shelf rock. I can see how if a big wave came along it could easy sweep you out to the ocean (this happened to a group hiking the WCT a few months ago - they were rescued). With this in mind, we were very careful and went around the big ones.

At around 66km (we started the day ay 70km), we stopped for a late breakfast / early lunch with spectacular ocean views. At around 65km we left the beach behind and took a 'beach access' trail to rejoin the main forest trail. From here we had only 3km to go to get to our lunch spot, Camper Bay, and we were hoping that our speed would pick up a little in the forest. We were sorely mistaken, however, and it seemed like this stretch took forever (2 hours actually), likely because of the incredible mud pits and roots that we had to pick our way through. It was some very bad (but not the worst of the trip) mud. There were also lots of very cool log bridges, boardwalks, and ladders through the forest. Many were broken and slippery, so you had to pay close attention! After crossing our first cablecar of the trip, we were eating lunch at Camper Bay at 12:45pm. We took a long break because it was such a nice bay, and it was sunny and warm.

We packed up and left Camper Bay around 2:15pm, and encountered MORE MUD and roots! The mud was DEEP in many spots, and you had to carefully step from slippery root to slippery root otherwise you'd end up knee-deep in mud! The going was slow and tiring, and it seemed like the mud would never end. There were lots of log bridges and ladders on this section too. Everyone was getting tired and we were hoping that we'd get to our campsite at 58km soon.

At around 5pm we left the mud and came to a steep ladder-only descent that went on forever - it was just one ladder after another and we were basically going down a vertical wall. With the big backpack on your back, your arms quickly got tired from going down the ladders. It was kind of a brutal end to the day! On the plus side, we did lose elevation quickly, and at the base of all those ladders we found beautiful Cullite Cove, our campsite for the night.

We got there around 6pm, and the only other group was a group of 3 from Czech/Winnipeg. They were very cool and friendly, and we saw them often throughout the rest of the hike. We were all exhausted, however, and after a great meal of spaghetti (best meal of the trip), we went to bed as soon as the sun set. Definitely the hardest day of the trip! I appreciated having a bear cache there so we again didn't need to do a bear hang.

DAY 3 (CULLITE COVE TO BONILLA POINT, 6h, 10km, ladders, boardwalk, roots/mud, tide pools, flat sandy beach): We woke up noticeably later this morning than last. Some members of the group discovered that they were 'too sore to move,' although I think everyone was sore in one way or another - yesterday was LONG! We had a proper oatmeal breakfast today, packed up, and were hiking by 8:30am. Right away, we had a cool cablecar crossing over Cullite Creek, which brought us directly to our first challenge of the day - to a steep mud slope that needed two hands and lots of slipping to get up. After that, we looked up, up, way up... to see ladders. It wasn't until about 9:30am that we got all the way up them (some were long enough to require a rest break halfway up) and the trail levelled out. An exhausting start to the day!

On the next 2km stretch, we were treated to mostly nice, easy walking along flat boardwalks - our first easy section of trail! Jessica got a little too complacent and stepped through a broken plank into mud - her boot stopped, she kept going (see photo below). There were a few sections of mud and roots, but not nearly as bad as yesterday. Around 10:30am we made it to the high and narrow Logan Creek suspension bridge, with great views of the creek below and ocean beyond.

The next 3km were not easy at all. Deep, awful mud, and long tiring ladders. Mark had a great fall into the mud and completely covered his arm. Everyone took a few missteps and got mud up to the top of the gaiter. We made it to Walbran Creek by noon, took off our gaiters and boots, and relaxed in the shade for a well-deserved lunch. It was a beautiful, wide open sandy beach. Walbran is a popular campsite, and I was tempted to stay here and camp, but ultimately we decided to press on (I'm glad we did) after a long lunch (plus long nap in the sun) to wait for tides.

We didn't leave Walbran until about 3:30pm due to tides (we wanted to take the beach route). The first step was wading Walbran creek - not difficult, but you had to get your feet wet. Over the next 1 or 2km we had a very slow pace again, but we didn't mind because it wasn't due to mud, it was the fantastic tidal pool life we found! Every few steps we found a different type of creature. Crabs, anenomes, mussels, jellyfish, and starfish were some of the highlights.

Eventually we left the rocky tidal pools behind and saw an inviting sight: long, flat sandy beach to walk along! The difficult part of the hike was now behind us, and we relished the easy beach walking. Some people we passed complained about how you sunk into the sand, but we weren't complaining - this was great! We made great time, and were at Bonilla Point by 6pm. After checking out the crowded campsite, we decided to camp a short distance away, right at Bonilla Point, where we got more privacy and spectacular sunset views. After a filling dinner of Cheesy Bacospuds, and a textbook bear hang, Mark built us a roaring beach fire with driftwood.

DAY 4 (BONILLA POINT TO CRIBS CREEK, 3h, 6km, flat sandy beach, lighthouse): Today was to be our 'rest day,' or at least half-day, so we let ourselves sleep in a little. We started hiking around 10am, and had an easy walk along incredible Carmanah beach. It's hard to describe how amazing this beach was, so check out the photos below. One highlight was the insane number of seagulls that sat on the beach and waited for you to get close before taking off - if you started running, they'd all start flying at once, it was a unique sight! We passed a food stand called 'Chez Monique,' that sold expensive food to those willing to pay. We're students though, so we couldn't really justify a $12 burger - especially considering that eating it would mean we'd have uneaten food to carry in our packs!

From here we briefly left the beach to climb up to Carmanah Lighthouse, which sits on a point with awesome views of the ocean all around. We spent a while exploring the neatly-kept grounds around the lighthouse.

From here our maps told us that the tides would keep us off the beach route, so we took the forest trail, but were quickly forced back to the beach, as the trail was closed due to erosion. It worked out well though, because this was probably the most spectacular section of beach on the whole trail - sandy, wide open, with huge surf on one side and thick forest on the other. We made it to Cribs Creek at 1pm for a grand total of 3 hours hiking for the day, and called it quits - it was too amazing here to go any further. We lounged in the sun eating lunch, and then went swimming in the surf. The waves were huge, and (apart from the sort of cold water), the beach reminded me of Hawaii. For most of the afternoon we had the beach completely to ourselves.

The campsite got incredibly busy as the day wore on - this is the last stop before the Native Reserves, so nearly everybody stops here, regardless of which direction they're hiking. While starting dinner, we saw a guy who was running the whole trail in a day, after doing a number of other long distance runs in the days before - pretty crazy! We ate a good dinner of rice, veggies and sausage, and then had another great beach fire courtesy of Mark. Mark took what may be the second best (see Day 5 for the best!) photo of the trip that night (below). The Czech/Winnipeg group came over to share our fire for a while too.

Continue to Part 2 of the WCT trip report