Racing the Tide
On the West Coast Trail You Have to Beat the Sea...
By Angela Reid
August 29, 2005

There are More Than 80 Sets of Ladders on the West Coast Trail Photo courtesy of Angela Reid

We have to be around the promontory and on the shelf about a kilometer away by 9:30 AM, when the tide will reach six feet and swallow this narrow beach. It is now 8:30 and we are moving as slow as a Canadian banana slug.

I follow Carolyn, my hiking partner, learning from her triumphs and mishaps, adjusting my route as necessary. When she calls out from behind a cluster of boulders to my left, "Don't go this way," I mind her and go right. I scramble atop a boulder twice my height, and stand there, stunned. Waves crash against the rocks about 20 feet away. On each side of me is a wide chasm I'll have to jump.

I unbuckle my pack and lift it by its haul loop, immediately resenting every unnecessary ounce. I heft my pack back and forth a couple times for momentum and fling it across the divide. It falls hard about two inches from the nearest edge of the boulder. Unfettered, I leap across the pit with ease. I put my pack back on and look around. I am stranded. Again. This time, on a new 15-foot boulder.

And this is only day two of six on the West Coast Trail.

Day 1: Gordon River to Thrasher Cove. (KM 75 to KM 70.)

6:30 AM. We wake up at the Queen Victoria Inn and enjoy hot showers and coffee and hair dryers, then walk down the hill to the bus depot.

Beside an old school bus, painted white and displaying the letters "West Coast Trail Express" above the front windshield, a retired truck driver awaits us. He is grizzled and tough, but regardless, he says, "I don't lift packs." It takes a coordinated effort, but Carolyn and I get our packs up into the back of the bus. Then, we speed away from Victoria's city lights and toward the darkness of the woods, the wipers flap frenetically at their highest setting, pushing rain across the broad, straight up-and-down windshield.

9:30 AM. Orientation at the Gordon River Trailhead consists of a PowerPoint presentation and a ranger's bored and too-fast narration. We scribble notes on the maps provided: If it's wet, assume it's slippery. No potable water at the Cheewhat River. Bonilla Point campground is closed due to cougar sightings.

The ranger wears the requisite khakis and badges but in spite of it looks like a housewife issuing warnings in a deceptively innocent monotone. Carolyn and I are a little confused—if you see a black bear, be non-threatening; if you see a brown bear, play dead; if you see a cougar, be aggressive. Or was it—wait. Can you repeat?

Noon. KM 75. We take a tiny ferry across the river to the trailhead. It is pouring. By the giant trailhead sign, we meet three hikers just completing their hike from the other direction: they take "before" photos of us; we take "after" photos of them. They remark on how clean and dry we look. Just then, the skies begin to clear. Feeling blessed, we march off into the forest, up our first (of many) muddy, root-entangled hills.

Described as the toughest trek in North America—and according to one brochure, comparable worldwide to the Tasmanian Overland Track Trail—Canada's West Coast Trail beckons thousands of hikers each year to the battered but beautiful Pacific Ocean side of Vancouver Island.

The trail and a now-sagging telegraph line were laid in 1909 as a lifesaving route for shipwreck survivors. It is hard to not imagine disaster every time we hike by a shredded cabin door, a rusty engine or anchor, and especially one giant immovable section of hull. This trail is haunted.

Maybe it's better than bushwhacking through the dense brush if you've just swum ashore from your sinking vessel, but to the average hiker, this trail is at times not much of a trail at all. Forest routes are often washed out, forcing hikers through endless mud pits ringed by slippery roots and rotting logs and beach routes are no easy alternative, commonly requiring hard scrambles over boulders, around surge channels and in the face of rising tides.

The physical demands of the trek are exceeded only by the psychological demands. The 75-kilometer (47-mile) route is an extended, isolated wilderness experience, offering only two entrances: at Pachena Bay to the north and Port Renfrew to the south; and only one more exit, at Nitinat Narrows near the 32-kilometer mark.

We started with the southern portion of the trail, widely agreed to be the most difficult, with the most ladders, the most elevation gained and the most scrambling. Some start at the north, hoping their packs will be lighter by the time they reach the hardest hiking, but we soon discover that packs do not get lighter on the West Coast Trail. Weight lost by eating meals is negated by weight added in wet gear.

5 PM. After five kilometers—or "clicks" as the Canadians call them—of slick, boot-swallowing trail, we arrive at the turnoff for Thrasher Cove camp, marked as all beach access points are, with weathered buoys dangling from trees.

We descend a series of steep ladders to a small beach hugged by sheer cliffs, where a city of yellow, blue and orange tents glimmers in the setting sun. Hikers are drying clothes and themselves on rocks and logs, thankful for tonight's clear skies after the morning's hard rain. There is a palpable buzz here—the anticipation of the hikers on their first night, the relief of the hikers on their last.

This is the most crowded camp we will see. And just like characters in a reality show or a boy band, the personalities in it are big and 2-dimensional: the Jocks, the Cranky Aussies, the Californians, the Stoners, the Adventure Racers, and us—the Seattle Girls.

9 PM. Carolyn and I share a campfire with The Jocks, Wade and Mar. Mar is on her first backpacking trip ever, but nevertheless will outpace us every day following.

I don't sleep well that night, thinking about tides, bears, cougars and my already aching quads.

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