Slept okay last night. Asleep by 10:30pm. Awake at 4:00am for the first time. Dozed until 6:30am. Malcolm got up at 6:30am. I followed. While he showered, I ran to the lobby to see what the continental breakfast offered. Omelets, grapefruit, many types of breads for toast, waffles, etc. Pretty good fair. I downed two omelets and a piece of toast and headed back to the room. Malcolm was dressed. Bones knocked on the door a few minutes later and we all headed to breakfast. I had another piece of toast and a bowl of fruit and yogurt. I grabbed a muffin, croissant and energy bar for the road.
We loaded up the car, Malcolm’s Subaru, with our gear and headed up Canadian Hwy 4 on the three hour drive to Pachena Bay. We stopped in Port Alberni for coffee, then back on the road. It soon turned to gravel even though we had about 60 miles to go.
Conversation ranged over many topics in the 2016 Subaru, from stories of previous adventures to heat pump installation and maintenance.
We arrived at Pachena Bay about 11:00am and drove through the campground. We stopped at the store/registration office and inquired about the trail. They pointed us to the office just beyond the south boundary of the campground, about 0.5 Km away. Malcolm Jr and I walked to it while Malcolm and Bones drove the car around.
Once at the registration office for the trail we talked to a bright and kind woman who patiently answered our questions. Bones has been pushing for a 4:00am start Saturday morning so we can round Owen’s Point before the incoming tide makes the route impassable. Her response was kind, but frank, “Why would you want to walk thru the caves in the dark and rain. You won’t be able to see anything. We discourage people from doing that stretch of beach in the rain when it is light out.” “Why would you want to do that?” This last statement became my mantra for the rest of the day.
She suggested that we walk 0.5 miles down the trail on the beach and then return via the forest trail so we could get a quick introduction to the trail. Our bus to take us to the start of the trail didn’t come for almost another two hours so we had the time. This we did.
The tide was coming in, but we had plenty of time and beach to make it to the forest junction. We stepped off the beach and onto the forest trail to return to our starting point and complete the loop. A nice mile loop. We got our introduction to the ladders. We ascended about three and descended the four in the half mile back to the registration office. We got a taste of why the going is advertised so slow. Only one person on the ladder at a time really slows progress.
Back at the start we hung around the registration office, ate a little lunch from our packs and prepared for the bus. We met a couple groups just finishing 6 nights on the trail and extracted as much info as we could about trail conditions.
The bus showed up at 1:15pm, disgorged about 20 hikers and then left to go to Bamfield. He was back at 1:35pm, just in time to load us up and be on our way by 1:45pm. The road had felt quite smooth on the drive in in Malcolm’s Subaru, but in this bus it was a very rough ride. From 1:45pm until 4:15pm the ride was the equivalent of having someone shake coffee cans of pebbles next to your ears while strapped to a run amuck vibrator chair. Once we hit pavement again the noise and vibration diminished and conversation was possible. It was so loud that when I tried to listen to “Spare”, the audio book with my earbuds, I couldn’t hear it.
We rolled into Port Renfrew about 5:30pm, made a stop at the registration office for the trail, then continued into “town” and stopped at a hotel. Here we disembarked with our packs and walked back up the road a bit to the “hiker cabins” where Malcolm found envelopes outside the office door with codes to get into our tiny cabins. Once inside we dropped our packs and headed for the Port Renfrew Pub, a spacious and nicely designed building on the waterfront.
Dinner was excellent. I had a salad with grilled chicken on top. We walked to the end of the pier in town, then back to our tiny cabin. It felt chilly.
During dinner Bones obsessed about the coming weather. According to the Canadian Weather Service a low is forming off the coast that will bring about 6 inches of rain over the 7 days we will be on the trail, a grim prospect, especially considering the perfect weather of the past two months. Bones could speak of nothing else, his eyes transfixed on swirling animated graphics of the approaching front. We all agreed it would most likely be miserable weather, but since there was nothing to be done about it there was no use dwelling on it. We had the clothing, rain gear and shelters to endure an onslaught and had considered all alternative distances to attempt to achieve tomorrow (Friday), our last clear, dry day to position ourselves for protected camping in the days ahead. We would just have to see what the trail was like and what kind of time we could make on it.
As we prepared for bed the plan was this: hopefully hike to Camper Bay the first night, a distance of about 7.5 miles, skipping Thrasher Bay campsite at 3.5 miles. Reason? It is the last day the route will be dry and hopefully quagmire free, allowing us to make better time in the good weather. Saturday is supposed to be quite wet. We don’t know how far we can make it Saturday, but hopefully get enough distance to put us in range of Nitinat Narrows where we have a cabin reserved for Monday night. Sunday the weather is a little calmer and we hope to make use of the dryer conditions. Monday and Tuesday see the brunt of the storm hit with an excess of three inches of rain expected to fall. We hope to be snug in our accommodations during this. But, at this point we don’t know how fast we can move, what the trail is like and what surprises lay in store for us. The only way to resolve the unknowns is to get on the trail and adapt our plans to the conditions.
I slept on the top bunk, Malcolm on the ground level bed. Lights out about 9:15pm. Big day tomorrow, with bigger ones in the days ahead.
Malcolm and Malcolm in the WCT bus
WCT bus and registration office for the trail in Port Renfrew
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