The West Coast Trail!
I finally got around to doing the West Coast Trail! At 23. Sorry, I should amend that. I’ve been wanting to do the West Coast Trail for at least 5 years, and I got to do it this year!! With my wonderful momma bear and some awesome friends, no less.
If you haven’t heard of it, the West Coast Trail is a 75km backpacking trail on Vancouver Island, in B.C. It started as a life-saving trail to save people from shipwrecks off the coast.
We went the first week of August, and honestly, I got on it about a week before because there was a cancellation spot (usually you’re supposed to book it months in advance). They limit the number of people that can start each day (thank goodness!) and so it can be tough to get a spot. My mom, my stepdad, and two of their friends already had spots that they booked way in advance, and so I tagged along!
Packing for the Trail
Are you starting to get a jist of my travel planning style? Ie, that it is almost non-existent and almost always spur-of-the-moment? That didn’t go along well with my stepdad. I was volunteering at the Calgary Folk Music festival the weekend they left, so I had to fly out and join them later.
A couple photos from Folk Fest.
I stayed one night in the camper with my mom and stepdad, and then we went to pick up our two friends Dave and Maran, and went to the mandatory orientation the day before starting. We stayed in a little guest house that night and started early the next morning!
It ended up being that my stepdad hurt his toe while doing a hut trip right before, and walking on that for a week would be brutal, so he ended up sitting this one out. Too bad!! But he had a great time travelling around the island.
For the rest of us, we started on the South (Port Renfrew) side. We weighed our packs (mine was a whopping 40lbs to start) and hopped on the little ferry that would take us to the start of our trek!
We ended up splitting the trip up as 13km the first day, 9km the second, 11km the third, 19km the fourth, 5km (which ended up being 15km for my mom and I - more on that later) the fifth, 6km the sixth day and 12 easy km on the last day.
If you look at the map, you can see the campsites we stayed at. Camper’s Bay, Walbran Creek, Cribbs Creek, Tsusiat Falls, Tscowis Falls and Michigan Creek. Everyone talks about Tsusiat Falls, and they were quite nice, but Tscowis was my favourite by far! It was fairly private, and the falls were, of course, chilly, but very refreshing!
My mom realized on the first night at Camper’s Bay that she had forgotten her thermorest as we were repacking the night before. I let her use mine a couple nights. On the sixth day, we hiked from Tscowis to Michigan. As we started taking everything out to unpack, I realized I had left my sleeping pad at Tscowis!! BUT thankfully that was a short day (only 5km), so my mom and I left our packs and walked back to get it. Made the day a little longer, but we took another trail on the way back, so we got to see a bit more of the trail!
We had such amazing weather the whole time. It was a little foggy in the mornings sometimes (can be expected from Vancouver Island) but it would always clear by noon at the latest. Mom and I would often walk ahead, and then either take breaks and meet back up with D & M or make sure to get a good camping spot at the next site.
We got to eat lots of “really good” rehydrated food! I think my favourite that we had was The Backpacker’s Pantry Pad Thai. It actually rehydrated pretty well! Pro tip: As a rule of thumb, always wait a couple more minutes than it says on the package.
We swam in waterfalls, we saw snakes, a bear, deer, lots of birds, seals and sea lions. We hiked a bunch, stopped at the two “restaurants” (read: shacks with cooked food) on the way for some grub , shared a bunch of laughs - thankfully no tears - and really just had a wonderful time. I’m so grateful that these wonderful people let me hike with them for a week. I wouldn’t have chosen anyone else.
A photo of the four of us at the end of the trail!
Since the West Coast Trail runs through Huu-ay-aht land, here is “see you next time” in their language, Nuu-chah-nulth.
