Editor’s note: Charles March Blackride seems to have been one of the 10 hikers on the Saskatoon does the West Coast trip report by Warren Long & Bill Wallace. This is his warped perception of the same hike.
Truth is, I'm a city boy. I like a VCR, recliner rocker, comforter, "munching high up the food chain".
Yet during the summer of '99 I spent as much time in the wild as I could, returning from overseas specifically to hike.
Actually, there’s more adventure to be had in Canada than Asia.
“The toughest hike in North America", the WEST COAST TRAIL on Vancouver Island. That's 7 difficult days in a rugged, remote coastal wilderness.
This was a couples trek (5 men & 5 women). I was assigned a date. Actually, I had the best woman. She erected my tent.
On balance, it's great to hike with ladies, though we were required to wash our "bits" EVERY day. (That's a little excessive, don’t you think?)
And it was insisted that I apply Stink-away, a curious waxy chemical substance which gums-up your armpit sweat glands so they no longer function properly.
The best reason to hike with women, though, is that they correct men when they are "out-of-line". How else would we know that we’ve gone too far unless women told us, constantly.
The West Coast Trail is a marvellous, world-class adventure. If they designed hikes as they design golf courses, it would be difficult to improve on this one.
Variety! You climb ladders, wade mud bogs, ride cable cars, scramble slippery ocean boulders, walk logs over ravines, race the tide crossing sandstone shelf, skirt dangerous surge channels, insert body parts into the maws of carnivorous giant green sea anemones, photograph shipwrecks (& a dead whale carcass), haul yourself up rope-pulls.
We were blown away by the seascapes, the scenic splendour. Beaches, bays, coves and sea-arches. Cliffs and waterfalls. Weird, moonscape geology.
Sun streaming through the gigantic misty old growth forest. Douglas fir, Hemlock, Sitka Spruce, and wonderfully fragrant Cedar. Moss-covered, disintegrating boardwalks.
Roaring surf and photogenic sea stacks (small islands marooned by the incoming tide) of timeworn rock. Actually, the alcoholics on the trip got marooned too, one tipsy, sunny afternoon.
Fantastic sunsets over the Pacific.
We had a great time, too. A lot of laughs. The entire trip was charmed. We finished better friends than when we had started. (Though we all suffered a bit of bushmouth.)
Most importantly, everyone survived.
Actually, we had one serious injury. One of the hikers (to protect her anonymity let's call her DB) hopped the West Coast Trail on one leg. She had some lame excuse -- no knee ligaments or whatever. All I know is that my back still hurts from carrying her up all those ladders.
But she made it! In 1998 there were 88 evacuation rescues (one every 2 days, about 1 in every 100 hikers). Serious injuries -- broken skulls, gangrene, toxic shock poisoning, or worse. The merely miserable, lame, sprained, and pained (just about everybody) are required to limp it out.
The trail is kept as authentically wild as possible. Horrors! -- there are very few toilets, usually queued. We most often retreated to the intertidal zone, as they do in India.
The West Coast Trail loos are understandably popular. People line-up just to take photos of the flotsam and jetsam memorabilia displayed inside.
One thoughtful camper left behind some shit-wiping gloves for all to share. They were expensive, too! Identical to CB's $80 pair of wind-stopper Gortex.
We prairie flat-landers were impressed by the plentiful marine life. Limpets, mussels, starfish, spiny purple sea urchins. Seals & smellicose sea lions.
Our favourite sea critter was the fresh crab we cooked-up one night in sea water. (Or was it the fresh halibut at the End of the Line cafe?)
We watched a mink scurrying along beached logs. And a family of otters scavenging the fishing docks at Port Renfrew harbour.
A (rarely spotted) cougar jumped out in front of one of our vehicles on the drive back to Victoria.
Multitudes of sea birds; flocking gulls, cormorants, even a puffin. I loved the many bald eagles up on high snags.
We’d never before seen a whale in the wild. We saw many from the Trail, and even more California Greys on our whale-watching water taxi ride.
I took away many great memories from the West Coast Trail -- and 2 giant banana slugs which I liberated from my pack 5 days later.
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I made a second trip to Vancouver Island so I could walk the JUAN de FUCA MARINE TRAIL, the new (shorter) sister hike just south of the West Coast Trail.
(I needed to return to Victoria anyway as my woman had forgotten my tent in a cheap downtown hotel. I wanted to recover it.)
If the WCT did not exist, we would be claiming that "Wanda Fooka" was the best hike in Canada. The variety and scope is again amazing. This walk takes you along magnificent shorelines, through diverse forests, past waterfalls, and clear-cut sections.
I liked these campsites even better than on the WCT. It is a terrific luxury to enjoy a big driftwood fire. I love the smell.
At Botany bay I watched a young otter snoop the tidal pools, quite unconcerned by me.
First night, lovely Payzant creek campground. Pristine, under the old growth canopy away from the sea, quiet ... very quiet. I was the only camper.
But I wasn't exactly alone.
Packing-up next morning about 9 am, I glanced up to see a bear climbing high up a dead tree. Perhaps 20 m away from my tent.
As I calmly took down my clothesline, I thought, "A bit smallish to threaten me." ...
..."Cub!"
I grabbed-up armloads of loose gear and hustled off in the other direction.
September is berry season. Berry bushes thrive in former clear-cut areas. Bloated, diarrhoea bears were everywhere. About every third hiker I spoke with had seen a bear.
At Sombrio beach I located a fantastic hidden highlight, a narrow creek path up to a spectacular slot canyon waterfall. Wow!
Later I watched surfers ride the waves under the moonlight.
Next day, trying to beat the incoming tide, I ended-up wading, almost swimming, around one rocky point.
Thicker undergrowth results in more wildlife here than on the WCT. I disturbed dozens of dozing garter snakes, for example.
Fantastic weather. No rain for 6 days. September was a record month for sunshine. I only put the fly on the tent one night, that only to keep the salt spray off.
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