It was decided early on, probably about the time I fell on my arm about 250 steps into the hike, with Marty falling about 10 seconds later attempting to pull me up, that this would become no “ordinary” hike. Our past hikes in the mountains have produced our share of nicks, scrapes, and bruises, but we realized almost from the outset that on this hike, making it out at the other end (75 kilometres away) without broken bones, or sprained ankles or wrists, would be very, very, challenging. When we started the hike, we were told that 25 hikers had already been evacuated from the trail during the previous weeks.
A “Slips & Falls Scoreboard” was hastily produced on the pages of the Journal, with a point structure drawn up, after careful deliberation around the campfire the first several evenings. The infamous “turtle”…when one falls on one’s back, legs and arms flailing in all directions, was given 2 points. A serious “slip”, barely escaping falling, or a “fall” itself, were each deemed to be worthy of 1 point. We decided that “blood” on any “turtle”, “slip”, or “fall”, should be rewarded with 1 additional bonus point. Thus, a terrible turtle, with blood spurting everywhere, could have garnered oneself 3 huge points, and probably a stranglehold on the individual title.
Death was taken quite seriously. It was decided that the first death should be awarded “automatic winner”. The debate then centred on what should happen if a second person was to die. It was determined that any subsequent death would be “too late”, thanks for coming, nice try, and sorry, no, we don’t have any parting gifts!
After an incredibly fortunate first day (Gordon River-Thrasher Cove), our German friend Helge and John shared the early lead, having made it through unscathed. Marty went out on a limb (actually, literally…he probably did do that several times during the week!) by predicting that Helge would make it through the entire week without a slip, or a fall. This was perhaps the kiss of death (er, bad choice of words perhaps), as Helge racked up an outstanding 7 points the very next day (Thrasher-Camper Bay), with 3 “turtles”, including one with blood. Needless to say, we were very impressed.
Then there was the matter of who, or more precisely, what score, would win. Should the hiker with nary a scratch on his body ultimately become champion, or should the beaten up, bruised, and battered warrior be given the trophy. We’ll let you come to your own conclusion.
|
Slips and Falls Scoreboard |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jim | Trent | Marty | John | Helge | |
| Sunday | 3 (1 turtle) | 4 (both turtles) | 1 | 0 | 0 "ain't gonna happen" |
| Monday | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 7 (3 turtles, 1 w/blood) |
| Tuesday | 1 | 3 (1 real good turtle) | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| Wednesday | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Thursday | 2 (beautiful turtle) | 0 | 3 | 1 | 3 (1 turtle) |
| Friday | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Saturday | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| TOTAL | 7 | 9 | 8 | 3 | 16 |
Once Rob, Deanna, Debbie, and Heather had left in the taxi to get to their chartered boat at Pachena Bay, the 4 of us and Helge waited around the Information Centre for the WCT Express to stop in at 1:15pm. I sprawled out on the ground and napped for a few minutes, giving the blisters on my feet a bit of a break. God, were they sore. I thought I’d done a pretty good job of keeping my feet dry the first few days of the hike, but my socks and boots had gotten really wet the last day or two from all of the mud-holes, and my toes were paying the price. Ouch!
The bus arrived right on time, and once we got ourselves and our packs loaded, and everybody else was onboard, it was about 1:30 when we departed for Victoria via a series of logging roads, heading for Port Renfrew first. The bus driver was new to the route, this being his first week at it, so the owner of the bus company was sitting directly behind him in the front row, and they kept up a lively conversation for most of the trip.
During one of their conversations, they missed a turn on one of the logging roads, and both realized it just as we zoomed by. It took several minutes of driving, however, before he could manage to turn the bus around on the narrow road. It was crazy figuring out which roads to take up there…I don’t know how they do it. Wow!
A couple of hours later we’d made it to Port Renfrew, where we picked up several more hikers, so the bus was fairly full on its way into Victoria. Once in Victoria, we arranged with the driver to let the 5 of us out nearer the Hostel, instead of walking the 4 or 5 blocks UPHILL from the bus depot to the Hostel. Whiners, eh?!!
Back at the Hostel, we checked in, lugged our packs up to the 3rd floor [again!], and proceeded to spend the next half hour in the showers! We shaved, got cleaned up, and then went downstairs to find some supper, ending up across the street from the Hostel, at a great little restaurant.
Earlier in the day, we had arranged with Rob to meet up with the 4 of them for supper, but their boat trip took a bit longer than anticipated, so the 5 of us ate our meal, had some drinks, and then wandered over to the “Elephant and Castle”, where we finally met up with them, including Ralph… a good friend of Rob’s, and they were able to have a “late” supper, just before the kitchen closed!
We did some pub-crawling after that, saying goodbye to Debbie after supper [Deanna was pretty wiped, so she’d said her “goodbyes” through Rob], and later, after we shut down the pubs, said goodbye to Heather [and Ralph] near the Hostel [after meeting an interesting guy in one of the pubs…from “Tronna”], and then I walked back with Helge to the Hostel.
About 9 the next morning, the 5 of us went down the street to a little pancake house for breakfast. Then at 10:45, Rob stopped in front of the Hostel, just like he’d promised, and gave the 4 of us a ride to the airport, after saying goodbye to Helge on the front steps of the Hostel. Thanks again for the ride Rob…that was awesome!
Standing in the check-in line at the airport, we were right behind the best friend of one the authors of the WCT guidebook “Blisters and Bliss…A trekker’s guide to the West Coast Trail”. He turned around, took one look at us [he probably “smelled” us!], and said “West Coast Trail?” We nodded. He mentioned to us that the author’s favourite route was exactly what we had done, from “south to north”.
Checking in at the Air Canada counter, I couldn’t believe it when they threw my backpack on the scale and it weighed 58 pounds! Wow! I looked at the other guys, and they all turned around and pretended not to notice.
I asked the ticket agent if I could take “Stanley” [my adopted walking stick] as a “carry-on” with me. He figured I could, but suggested talking with one of the security guys about it. We got our boarding passes, walked out of the terminal, along the front sidewalk, and then over to the boarding gates in another building [the whole terminal was being renovated] and I went up and asked the first security guy I saw if I could take it onboard with me. He said “sure, no problem”.
We killed 5 or 10 more minutes wandering around, and then we walked through the security area. The very first guy that I approached at the screening area took one look at me and said “you can’t take that with you”. I explained that I had just got the okay from another guy. He asked who it was, I pointed to him, and he said he shouldn’t have said that. He said if I could walk, I couldn’t take it onboard with me. I quietly thought to myself that I couldn’t walk “real well”, given the blisters on my feet, but figured that wouldn’t convince him! Oh well.
So, I had to go all the way back to the check-in counter. As I got there, I turned around and saw that Trent had the same problem that I had! I got one of the ticket agents to bag them up for us, and then just as he taped it all up, he looked over my shoulder and let out a sigh. I turned around to see Marty heading our way with his knife! Seems they wouldn’t allow him through the screening area with a knife. Crazy Marty!
We made it back through the security area, waited about 10 minutes in the boarding lounge for our departure call, and then said goodbye to John [he was departing a few minutes later for Calgary]. Marty, Trent, and I walked through the boarding gate and outside onto the tarmac to our plane, giving us one last chance to breathe in that ocean air and re-live the moments of the past week. Trent snapped a quick photo, and then it was time to head up the steps, and say goodbye to an incredible week.
So what does one think about while hiking? While plodding along, on a long uphill grind, sweat sliding down the side of your face, your parched throat crying out for another few drops of water from your long-empty water bottle?
For me, sometimes it’s music. Sometimes it’s family, or friends. Or sports. And sometimes, a beautiful far-away place which I’ve had the fortune to have traveled to.
I’d seen “Newfoundland’s Party Band” Great Big Sea at Saskatchewan’s 100th Centennial Party, the evening before I left for Victoria. Probably because of this, two of their songs stuck in my head for most of the following week.
One, called “Donkey Riding”, is nowhere near a favourite of mine. In fact, I’m not so sure I even like the song! But, I found while hiking along at a fairly good pace, usually on one of the better boardwalks, that the tempo of the song suited my hiking pace perfectly.
The other song, “Consequence Free”, is a much more “up-tempo” type of song, and probably my favourite of the band. Some of the lyrics, however, border on “dangerous”. There is a line in the song which reads…
“We could – slip off the edge, and never worry about the fall”.
Now, I suppose one of us could have “slipped off the edge” of a cliff, but it was more those stupid moss-covered boardwalks which had me worried “about the fall”. And that’s when I always seemed to have that particular song pop into my head, while carefully treading along on one of those “green” boardwalks.
Ah, the dangers of backpacking!
At least I didn’t lie in my sleeping bag on the beach at night worrying about when the next Tsunami would hit, thinking of the lyrics from their song “End of the World”…
“It’s the end of the world as we know it…
…That’s great, it starts with an earthquake…”
Would I hike this trail again?
We asked each other this question while having dinner after arriving back in Victoria upon finishing the hike, and we all emphatically said “NO”! It might have had something to do with all the blisters we had accumulated in the last day or two of the hike!
Yet, in the succeeding days, several of us mellowed on the subject, and I believe if I were to ask each individual again, the answer instead could be an emphatic “YES” from several of us! Perhaps not “next year”, but I think in coming years…yes, several of us would probably take another shot at it.
One very different aspect of this hike, personally, was the “people” factor. When we hike in the mountains, as a “foursome”, we tend to stick to the 4 of us. I think it’s because of a number of factors, including the tent sites being more spread out in the trees of the backcountry campsites, the ban on campfires, and with no tide tables to worry about, we can start hiking the next day whenever we want, unlike this trail where, with high tide looming, hikers tend to bunch up when leaving camp in the morning, thus adding to the social aspect.
On the West Coast Trail, you tent on the beach. It feels like one big “tent city” this way, and your tent can be literally within a few feet of complete strangers [much to the dismay of hikers sleeping anywhere near Marty!]. But, you get to mingle with other hikers this way.
Campfires are welcome while hiking the WCT, on the beach below high tide line, if at all possible. And again, the opportunity to visit with other hikers is encouraged. We found that there seemed to be several “communal” campfires on the beach each night, with Helge, Debbie, Heather, Deanna, Rob, and others, joining us on different nights.
Something which really intrigued me was the “family factor”. It was great to see Rob & Deanna [brother & sister] hiking together, and Debbie & Heather [mother & daughter] hiking together, particularly for an extended period of time like that. Not once did I see an argument, or bad blood, between them [well…I think I saw some blood on Debbie’s knee at Michigan camp, but I ain’t gonna blame Heather on that one!]. This “family factor” intrigues me enough to want to hike with my brother sometime in the future, perhaps this trail or another ocean-side trail.
This trail was so much more than a “hike”. It was an “experience”, one which overwhelmed [at times] the senses. I feel fortunate to have “experienced” these 7 days in July, and I look forward to the day, some day, that I return to Gordon River to “experience” this trail once again.
Heather mentioned to me while hiking alongside her on one of the beaches, about the fast pace of life in Calgary, the driving, the work style, just everything in general. It got me thinking, while catching some rays at Michigan beach on our last afternoon of the hike, about the lyrics to the song “Out in the Country” by the rock band Three Dog Night.
FYI…the band’s name came from the Australian Outback custom of judging the temperature of the night by the number of dogs needed to keep warm. If it was a reasonably warm night, a man needed only one dog to lay against for warmth. A somewhat cooler night required 2 dogs, and a really cold night needed 3. Thus, Three Dog Night was born.
Anyway, I thought the lyrics were very appropriate for what we experienced, during these 7 awesome days in July!
Whenever I need to leave it all behind
Or feel the need to get away
I find a quiet place, far from the human race
Out in the country.
Before the breathin’ air is gone
Before the sun is just a bright spot in the night-time
Out where the rivers like to run
I stand alone and take back somethin’ worth rememberin’.
Whenever I feel them closing in on me
Or need a bit of room to move
When life becomes too fast, I find relief at last
Out in the country.
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