wct04 - day six

... meant for hiking

from left to right, boots belong to Derek, John and Greg.

August 21, 2004

There was no journal entry for the day. I was home. I was aching to see Meaghan; we had been apart for weeks. I was warm and dry and besides, it was late, we both just wanted to sleep.

The day started wet. At least inside the tent it did. The fly was soaked inside and out and in many places dripped water onto the tent. In some spots drops fell through the tent's screen side, spraying everything beneath it in a light mist. There was one spot where water dripping from the fly pooled in the hollow of the polyester roof, where it in turn dripped down on me. Lying on my stomach to write the night before, drips landed squarely between my shoulder blades. When I woke in the morning my sleeping bag was damp all over and soaked through in three spots. Water will always find a way to follow gravity.

It wasn't raining when we roused ourselves, but it was close. Slopping through a heavy mist we raced against the clouds to get packed up. Light drops of rain pelted me as I closed the top of my pack and slung it on my back. The tempo of the rain got faster as we progressed along the trail, but the canopy tricked us into thinking we would stay relatively dry for some time. Then we came to Pachena Lighthouse and stepped out from the protection of the trees. It was going to be a long, wet day.


Derek(r) and Greg at Pachena Lighthouse where the gentle rain has turned to deluge. Out of the rainforest's canopy it became clear just how wet the day would be.

The rest of the hike was largely spent in silence. It was too hard to hear each other. Babble on, the rain, echoed in the nylon lining of my hood; like my head was in a drum. Without my hood the water from the sky had nowhere to run save for down my back and chest. Cloistered in our shrouds we each at times led the way while the others followed, watching footsteps fall before us. It was tedious and monotonous, and periodically it was hazardous. The West Coast Trail is legendary for eating up hikers in the rain by so saturating their spirits with wet roots, slippery rocks and muddy sections of trail and we were feeling its wraith.

Perhaps our spirits would have been lower had this been our first day, not our last. We passed people going the other way, heading south. Not many. How do you start a trip like this on these terms? What lay ahead for them? We slumped through rivulets of water that wore away at the gravel, rocks and roots that lay just beneath the surface of the hardpacked soil of the path. How will the rivulets wear away the comfort of the newcomers to the trail.

We made good time. Bouyed by each passing distance marker, we counted down our way to Bamfield and the trailhead. The rain continued the whole way. We were off the trail by noon, and Meaghan picked us up. Wow, what a saviour she was. A rented van gave each of us space and she had a cooler full of food: sandwiches; muffins; orange and apple juice; and fruit by the bag, like grapes, peaches and apples.

And dry, clean clothes, at least for me. I still stank underneath, but I had clean clothes to hold all the rankness in. I don't even want to describe the smell wafting up from the back seat of the van.


Derek and Greg ready to roll. Waiting, actually, at the Duke Point ferry terminal in Nanaimo. It was a two or three sailing wait and all the while we were waiting another ferry at the dock sat idling, generous streams of smoke coming from its stack.

I woke that morning on a drizzly beach on the Pacific Ocean. By the time we got off the ferry, dropped Greg and Derek at Greg's place, and vacuumed and washed the van, it was after midnight. It would be days before the completeness of the trip would sink in. Five nights on the trail and not a single argument or raised voice. Glorious weather, a remarkable landscape and an openness to possibilities.

Born, a tradition.