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

Sunset at Thrasher... Photo courtesy of Angela Reid

KM 17. We drop back onto the beach route at Tsocowis Creek, knowing that these next five kilometers are our last chance for beach hiking before the trail ascends through the forest over 12 kilometers of impassable cliffs.

This beach, while at first glance gentle and welcoming, consists of loose round pebbles, sloping sharply down to the water line. It's like walking in marbles. Every step feels uphill. I begin to regret not wearing my gaiters today. A small rock works its way down the inside of my boot. Then another. And another. Frustrated, I stop hiking, pull my boots off and just walk barefoot for a while.

Now it's like walking barefoot in marbles.

KM 12. We slowly pick our way across the slippery sandstone bed of a wide and flooding creek mouth, looking for a spot for our tent. Two women down the beach wave and motion us in their direction. We figure we've met them and we walk over. Nope. We don't know them.

"Camp right here," one of them suggests brightly. We're too tired to think for ourselves, so we drop our things as instructed.

"Now," says the other, beaming from where she sits on a log with a mug in her hand, "Can we make you dinner?"

Carolyn begins to tell them how they really shouldn't, how we have all this food left that we need to eat, how we'll be just fine. I glare at her.

"That would be great!" I answer. So Lise and Julie, two sisters in their 40s from Calgary, served us hot couscous with sun-dried tomatoes and mushrooms. And for dessert, hot cocoa with whiskey.

Day 6: Michigan Creek to Pachena Bay. (KM 12 to KM 0.)

8 AM. We leave Michigan Creek and hike fast. Our bus leaves at 1:15 PM from the Pachena Bay Trailhead, which is twelve kilometers away. Carolyn is calculating our pace on her running watch.

"That one took twenty minutes, too," she says, and we try to go faster, but our bodies know that they are almost done, and the adrenaline that got us through the last few days is now gone. Suddenly we are complaining of all kinds of aches and pains.

KM 5. "All we have to do now is walk around Greenlake," I say, mostly to myself, comparing the distance ahead with the distance around our neighborhood running path back home.

"And then we can go to Starbucks?" Carolyn asks wearily, referring to her post-run latt&#eacute;ritual.

"Or Duke's," I suggest, because they have a liquor license.

KM 3. We are starting to pass hikers on their way down the trail from the other end. One is wearing a daypack and practically running. I watch him for a while as he continues past us, and I wistfully recall my own Day One energy and enthusiasm.

KM 2. We stop to talk to a solo through-hiker who doesn't seem to have much rain gear and thinks he'll finish the trail in four days. We wish him luck, we the veterans of the West Coast Trail.

The last kilometer goes ridiculously fast and we remember how many times we've been told by passing hikers, "It just gets easier from here." Finally, there is some truth to that. We arrive at the Pachena Bay Trailhead and throw our packs onto the bench near the parking lot. The West Coast Trail Express bus takes us back to Victoria via narrow, rutted, unpaved logging roads. We are wide-eyed and white-knuckled for the first couple miles, but then we begin to relax and Carolyn even manages to sleep, albeit with a tense, furrowed brow.

When we finally arrive in Victoria, we check into our hotel, then meet Lise and Julie right away—showers not allowed. We have dirt on our faces, we are wearing the same clothes we've been hiking in all week and our hair is so greasy it looks wet in places.

And we smell.

We go to a restaurant with a "please wait to be seated" sign and a dress code, and for some reason, they don't kick us out. We have calamari, the biggest plate of nachos I've ever seen and three pitchers of beer. And Carolyn suggests we hike the Tasmanian Overland Track Trail in 2005, because the West Coast Trail brochure says you "haven't earned bragging rights" until you've done both.

Despite what I've just endured, I agree to go to Tasmania. I attribute my gameness to that revisionist brain chemical that also has women suffering for hours, days, in the delivery room, only to gush later of "beauty" and "miracles" and "our special gift." When we leave the bar, we realize that the Friday-night scene has descended. People are wearing leather and hair gel. We are pretty buzzed and the culture shock is surreal. I feel a mini-anxiety attack coming on.

I think I am more comfortable around bears and cougars.

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