After seven days trekking through the infamous wilderness of the West Coast Trail along the Pacific shores of Vancouver Island we returned safe and sound back to Victoria! We started the journey fresh and wide-eyed on Wednesday, June 25th leaving Aili's Grandpa's house at 6am for the two hour drive to the end of the trail at Port Renfrew where we left our car and boarded the West Coast Trail Express bus for the four hour ride along bumpy active logging roads to the trailhead just south of Bamfield. On route, we saw two black bears and several deer grazing alongside the road. The bears were a bit disconcerting since we'll be spending the next six nights in a nylon tent! We sat through the mandatory orientation in the Park Office (telling us how to read tide charts - so we don't get washed out to sea; what to do in case of wildlife 'encounter' - so we don't get eaten; and what to do in case of emergency - so we don't die!), then hit the trail with two other groups - two Swiss guys who quickly high-tailed it ahead of us, and three women from Ottawa whom we kept leap-frogging on the trail for the next two days. The 77km long West Coast Trial was constructed as a lifesaving path in 1907 after a Steamship from San Francisco to Vancouver sank while rounding the horn of Washington State and washed up on this isolated shore of Vancouver Island. Most of the 193 passengers survived the shipwreck, but with no land-based way out of the wilderness and with no one knowing where she went down in the dense fog, only a few dozen passengers made it to safety and lived. This coast was known as the graveyard of the Pacific due to its notoriously bad weather, fickle currents, dense fog and the fact that all Vancouver or Seattle bound sea traffic must pass by it. The coast it littered with flotsam and jetsam - anything lost off a boat in the area is washed up here and the beachside campsites are all marked with lost floats and buoys from fishing nets and crab traps found nearby. The trail alternates between forest and beach with an occasional option to take either based on the tides. Several "impassible headlands" and large rivers or creeks necessitate heading into the forest and over a hill, up and down ladders, or across suspension bridges or cable cars to get by. Sometimes the tides are too high to safely take the beach route and the often more difficult forest route is the only option. We soon realized neither was really easier - the beach route was often in deep sand or along slippery, seaweed covered rocks making the hike very tough with full packs (we were behind a group of four guys moving across the rocks and saw two of them go down with a painful crunch on the slick flatrock) - our hope was always for flat, dry rock or packed, low-tide sand. In the forest, the trail was often muddy, covered in roots or downed trees and was usually NOT flat - there we prayed for the occasional dry, hard boardwalk constructed through the more marshy or boggy portions. Our first day was a 12km hike through the forest and beach to... Michigan Creek! It was named after the steamship Michigan that sank here in 1893. Along the way we passed a lighthouse just off the trail with a white picket fence and a little gate. Just beyond was a little home with a grassy yard and swing set. From our vantage point, this house looked like it could be in any subdivision in North America - strange to think we were actually on a remote part of the Canadian coast with absolutely no road access anywhere nearby. The next two days consisted of 13 and 17 km hikes respectively along similar terrain. A storm ravaged the coast two years ago and took down an estimated 2500 trees along the trail - some old growth trees with trunks six feet in diameter. These uprooted trucks stand like tombstones in the forest (and when they cross the path they make quite the obstacle course to navigate around). The hole ripped open in the earth underneath is typically 12 feet in diameter and several feet deep. These holes quickly fill with water and turn into a primordial ooze. In the accelerated biological time-line of the rainforest - they give birth to micro organisms, then algae and fungi, then mosquito larva as evidenced by the cloud of aggressive mosquitoes hovering above each one. Next ferns take root, then seedlings from other giant trees and the forest starts to rejuvenate itself. On day two we came to our first cable car - a crazy contraption used to cross rivers. Strung between two towers, it is a basket we pull to our side of the stream, load our packs and ourselves into, and then let it rip. We get a free ride half way across the span, then have to hoist ourselves up the other side to the next tower. First half fun, second half hard! That night camp was at Tsusiat Falls, a stream plunging 30ft onto the beach and then taking a serpent-like path through the sand to the sea. We had to balance across a log over the stream to the campsite (and saw one girl not make it - slipping and falling slightly off the log plunging both feet into the shallow creek - oops!). Offshore, we could see grey whales spouting into the air and breaching the occasional flipper or tail. The next day we hiked to Nittnat Narrows where we had to take a ferry (well, an old herring skiff actually) across the inlet. There, we stopped on the Dididaht Indian Reservation for a quick crab lunch. The guy pulled the crab trap out of the saltwater inlet, plopped two into boiling water, cracked them in half and handed them to us on paper plates (no utensils). Fresh crab in the middle of nowhere - awesome! The highlight of the next day was when we turned the corner around a large tree and saw a little cougar cub right in the middle of the path! At first we weren't sure what it was but we immediately ruled out squirrel, raccoon, weasel, and any other small furry animal, plus it looked an awful lot like an adorable little kitten. Problem was - momma must be close by, which is a VERY scary thought. So we immediately started making noise, shouting and banging our trekking poles and making ourselves look as big as possible by hiking with our hands above our heads (as advised by the Park Ranger). Luckily, we had no sighting of the mother - but had the eerie feeling that she had sighted us! The adrenalin rush was enough to get us to camp at Cribbs Creek but we were exhausted and decided to add a day to our planned six-day tip and extend it to seven shorter days to make it more enjoyable and since the weather was perfect and the forecast was for clear skies. Saturday was mostly beach walking and there were scores of mussels on the rocks as well as small crabs and sea anemone shells. We passed another lighthouse at Carmannah Point and climbed up several stories worth of ladders to get around the headland. Crossing through another Indian Reservation, we saw an entrepreneurial couple had a beach shack made of driftwood and covered in tarps selling burgers and snacks. The day was beautiful and with our revised itinerary we had a more leisurely schedule so stopped for lunch and enjoyed resting on the sandy beach and then bought some marshmallows to roast on our campfire that night! Looking down while I hiked, I saw an enormous winged shadow cross my path and looked up to see a soaring bald eagle overhead which landed high in a fir tree just off the beach. We also passed a group of sea lions on a rock outcropping basking and barking in the sun. The wildlife is truly amazing here. We hiked through the 'hole in the wall' since we had low tides and that saved us an arduous trip up and over the point, then stopped at Walburn Creek for the night. More dehydrated food for dinner but the marshmallows roasted over our driftwood campfire was a real treat! Sunday was an obstacle course of a trek through the forest to Camper Creek. Light cloud cover helped keep us cool and we got camp setup early so we could plot the tides for tomorrow - we want to take the beach route but need tides below 8ft and can only cross Owens Point at tides under 6ft. Low tide is only 5.2 at 4:40pm so timing will be tricky but at least it's in line with our usual late starts! They say the last two days are the hardest and they're not kidding. We had a very leisurely morning as we needed the tide to go down to take the beach. We did 4 km through forest, then rested for two hours waiting for the water to drain out to sea. As we started along the wet rocks, we noticed a series of surge channels carved deep in to the rock. The first one was narrow so we jumped it. The next was wider but with just a foot or so of water in it. We tried to crawl down in it and up the other side using the slick boulders and logs down in it as stepping stones. Aili slipped in and got a soaker and had a real hard time climbing back out with her full pack. I took mine off and threw it up the other side, then grabbed a log with both hands and hoisted myself out - pretty tough going and sketchy, we couldn't believe this was the 'approved' trail! The next channel was over 8ft wide and full of deep water - that's when we noticed little trails into and out of the woods used to bypass the channels and sure enough, looking back, we saw the same bypass at the previous channel - oh well, no fun always taking the easy way! We hit the point and waited another hour. With another ½ hour to go to low tide we noticed a set of knotted ropes up over the point. It was about an eight foot climb and Aili said she could handle it so instead of waiting longer, we hauled ourselves and our packs up and over the rocky point. The trickier part was coming down the other side onto a 1 foot by 1 foot landing on a mossy rock, then scurrying down a narrow sloping ledge heading directly into the ocean. We made it past and we onto the "Boulder Field". the next 3km were a chaotic jumble of basketball to VW sized rocks strewn from cliff to sea. We used our hands and scampered over, between and sometimes under these giant rocks. Huge driftwood logs, some five feet in diameter, often entered the mix making the going even tougher. Everyone told us it was a two hour trip through the boulder field but in just over an hour we hit Thrasher Cove campsite well ahead of our expectations! A bit exhausted, we set up camp high on the beach to avoid the 11.8 ft high tide tonight, had a quick dinner and hit the tent. The last day - day SEVEN! July 1st - Happy Canada Day! Up at 5am and hiking by 6am. Several ladders straight up the cliff - I lost track at 137 rungs. Then switchbacks up the steep hillside - real leg burners for our already sore limbs. The trail was hardly a trail at all as landslides, fallen trees and general erosion make it almost indistinguishable from the surrounding landscape. We lost the trail twice and had to backtrack - each step making the mistake an agonizing one. We hit the top of the highest ridge at an old derelict donkey engine - a strange steam-powered machine used for hauling logs up the hillside in the timber days of the 1920's. The final 3km was an up and down trek over tree roots, slick granite and mud all along the narrow foot-wide "path" through the sloping forest. We hit the last kilometer marker - 75km - concluding our trek (with the 1km detour each way to Thrasher Cover it totaled the 77km trail). We raised the orange buoy signally for the ferry to pick us up and take us across the bay to the Park Office to turn in our slip (so they know we got out safely) and then got in our car for the drive back to Victoria and hot showers! It was quite the epic journey - over 45 miles through virgin forest full of wildlife - a true wilderness experience. It was tough and both Aili and I could tell we shed some pounds. Would we do it again? Ask us when the aches go away... and we'll probably say "definitely!" For now, we'll be enjoying the comforts of civilization.