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Day 4, August 2nd, Monday: Walbran Creek to Cribbs Creek, 12 km in 8(?) hours, low tide 10:45 (0.7m)
Map of Day 4 (click to enlarge) It was Bill’s turn to make breakfast and he produced Meusli with hot or cold water.
Warren gets blisters on his shoulders... We packed up and were on our way. Bill and Warren noted that no attempt was made to stick to the schedule which had been agreed to only the previous evening. Once again, Bill and Warren forded the creek while the rest wimped out and waded with Tevas.
Waiting for everyone to get their boots on after fjording the creek. Tough, sucking, gravelly sand along the route made this a long day.
Chris examines a log boom tug (?) We stayed on the sandstone shelf as much as possible but were frequently forced onto the sand when both the shelf and the inland trail disappeared.
Cougar tracks? Once Carmanah Creek was forded using a short tree bridge, lots of hard packed sand was available to the joy of all.
Resting Bill and Joan had started out in front but Rick smelled beer and put it into high gear, quickly followed by Chris. Horses lead you to water, but Ricks lead you to beer. Even once Chez Monique came into view, it still took another 45 minutes of walking along the beach to get there. Burgers and beer were had all round at Chez Monique’s.
Under the orange tarp at Chez Monique's A collapsing chair caught Jeff by surprise. An attempt to lure Elaine into the same demise failed, when the booby-trapped chair failed to collapse. Sheryl’s wait, with camera at hand, had proved to be fruitless. Some members of the party may have consumed excessive amounts of alcohol. Some left after one or two; but Sandy, Rick and Elaine proved to be too hard to get moving. Eventually, the rest left, and those with a drinking problem promised to catch up.
Rick, Sandy and Elaine insist on more time for drinking. The sober party headed up to Carmanah Pt lighthouse. They spent a few minutes up top wandering around the lighthouse and looking at the view. They hesitated for one second before abandoning the non-sober party to their own means; since the trail had already forked, and they were too lazy to go back to the fork and wait for an unspecified amount of time, they didn’t feel they had any choice. From the lighthouse, they headed down the steep steps to the beach and watched the sea lions playing on the rocks.
Looking back at the Carmanah Lighthouse. The hike along the waters edge was purposeful, the tide was comming in. Indeed, when one stopped and watched the waters’ edge closely in locations sheltered from the action of the waves, the movement was perceptible and continuous.
Passing a stack, with the water rising. The drunks wandered aimlessly around the light house and successfylly badgered a youth into letting them play with his telescope and watch whales. Later they also headed down to the beach. Once Rick had turtled off a ladder, they resolved to find a small island that they could sober up on.. They then sat down and waited to see how long it would be before Warren started worrying and came back to rescue them. However, it turned out that Warren had no intention of heading back until well after dark. The rising tide came in. The Olympians came by and asked them how they had gotten out to their present location. In their befuddled state, the three of them (Elaine, Rick and Sandy) didn’t really notice that they were now trapped on the island. They did ask the Olympians to deliver a fake message to the rest of the group stating that they were still at Monique’s drinking. Some time later, once they had sobered up a touch, they realized that they were stranded on an island, awaiting a rescue that was not coming. Eventually the threesome realized that no rescue was in store, took off their boots and waded ashore. They skulked into camp after their fake message had been pretty much ignored. This turned out to be another nice camp site at the top of a nice sand beach. Cribs Creek runs along the back of the beach and eventually disappears as it sinks down into the sand and then through the beach to the ocean. The sand was soft and hot enough to burn ones’ feet, the stream was warm and everyone had a good bath. After the rough pebbles of the previous site, walking around barefoot was a joy. The sober party spent a relaxing hour or two lying around in the tents.
Looking over at our camp, from across the bathing pool. Warren met and spoke with Kathleen and Linda, another pair of women making the trek. They had started at the north end and had many questions about the southern portion of the hike. They were surprised by Warren’s confession that this was actually our first hike. It turned out that they had done lots of preparation for this one, including taking a camping course. Bill spent time time talking to the Olympians while Elaine and Joan poured their knowledge into Kathleen and Linda.. The cooking area was good and well protected from the wind by a wall constructed of huge driftwood logs. Jeff the Cook and Sheryl cooked a nice spicy Beef Creole. Warren, Sandy, Joan and Bill went for a long walk down the beach. The line of driftwood logs turned out to be at least a kilometer long and trailed off into lots of smaller debris. Sandy collected copious amounts of driftwood which she used to adorn her pack. Warren and Bill were only able to pretend to be interested for a limited amount time, while Joan was able to feign interest indefinitely. Sand fleas occupied surf line by thousands. Since this was the only real place on the beach where the sand was of a walkable consistency this meant that you were walking in a cloud of jumping sand fleas. It was impossible for us not to have been stepping on them, which made for guilty walking. We heard via the grapevine that our water taxi has broken down. Apparently this wasn’t too unusual and all the locals expected him to be up and running by the time we get to the trailhead.
Another day, another incredible sunset. The young, barely post-pubescent males chatted up by Dana joined our campfire for an evening of drink, wit and intellectual conversation. Rick is able to converse fluently on the evenings’ topics, consisting of which alcohols cause better hangovers than others. The varieties of cheap beers figured more prominently in the conversation than expensive ones. |
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Images with borders are thumbnails (click on them) Mail Me! warren.long@shaw.ca Warren's Hiking page is HERE Warren & Sandy's HomePage is HERE. |
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