Praise the Sun Gods
I just spent three glorious days in Tofino followed by 8 nights on the West Coast Trail (WCT), including a night on the trailhead before we started. When I say the weather could not have been better, I’m not exaggerating. I’m coming home from the wet/west coast of British Columbia looking like I spent a week on a Mexican beach. In 11 days we had 9 days of sun, a semi-cloudy day, and a cloudy day today on our way out. It drizzled one night for 3 minutes, and two nights ago it rained a bit after dinner, downpoured after went to bed, and cleared up for a beautiful sunrise the next morning. The only time we really saw rain was driving to the ferry on our way home.
The Best Laid Plans
Our goal after our night on the trailhead was to do the WCT over 6 nights and seven days. That’s a typical amount of time, but we added a challenge: We wanted to spend one extra night at Tsusiat Falls campsite, a beautiful campsite with a very pretty waterfall. This meant we’d have to push hard one day. Originally we thought this would be the second day, but we woke up excited on the trailhead and decided we’d do the big push day one. The first day was only 5k to the first campsite with a mere maximum elevation of 240 meters. Dave and I had just done our Everest the Crunch challenge less than a month ago, where we did a 241 meter climb 37 times… walking almost 85km up hill in 35 hours. We could easily do the extra 6km to the next campsite on day 1.
We were wrong. After pushing hard and yo-yo-ing up and down a technically challenging hike with over 45lbs on our backs, we were spent. So we got up early and pushed hard the next day. Too hard. We got to the second campsite and again we were exhausted and wanted to stop.
Cost/Benefit
The cost of being the fastest on the trail and getting to the campsites first was that we were not making headway in creating the space for a rest day (for which we had special plans to be shared in a future post). We were arriving 1-2 hours before anyone else, but we didn’t have it in us to keep going. After 2 days failing we decided that we’d have a ‘normal plan’ and a ‘push further plan’, but not beat ourselves up if we just do what was suggested in the WCT app that we were putting our plans into.
The benefit of pushing hard each morning was that we were spending less time on the trail and more time on the beautiful, sunny beaches. We’d have our tent up, water collected, firewood gathered, and be resting and relaxing in the sun… watching the tide come in or go out, while others straggled into the campsite over the next few hours.
Long Beach Wisdom
We arrived at Tsusiat falls on the 5th day, typical for people starting on the south end like us, and planning to spend just one more night on the trail. That’s when we remembered the wise words Kristen shared with us on Long Beach, near Tofino, just a few days before:
“I’ll give you my Retirement speech: Retirement allows you to be in the moment for as long as the moment lasts.”
We are both retired. We don’t have work to get back to. We can stay an extra day.
Creating The Time and Space
While the Tsusiat falls are beautiful, it’s a very busy campsite, and that’s not what we wanted for our day off.
That’s when a fellow hiker gave us some advice, instead of the 13km hike to the next suggested campsite, go an easy 8km to the Tsocowis campsite, which also has a waterfall, and is not very popular because it’s going too far for people starting in the north, and makes the last day too long for people going north like us.
We took her advice, got to Tsocowis earlier than we arrived at any other campsite previously, and only had this hiker and her partner to share the whole campsite with. Dave and I agree that Tsocowis was our absolute favourite day on the WCT. This was the space we created to have a magical trip within our trip… and I’ll dedicate a full post to share more.
Serendipity and Generosity
It wasn’t just our time at Tsocowis that was magical, the whole day was extra special. For five nights we were travelling with a wonderful group of 5 people, sharing a fire with them each night. And now that we added an extra stop, we were going to split up from them. We left Tsusiat Falls early and forgot to say our goodbyes, but that would still happen. Along the trail there are two red Adirondack chairs that look out onto the ocean. Shortly before getting to the chairs, we passed some hikers coming the other way. One of them suggested, “You are about 400 meters from the red chairs and there are whales feeding there, be sure to stop.”
We arrived at the chairs and 3 hikers who stayed at the last few campsites with us and left Tsusiat really early were there.
“We’ve been here over 20 minutes, the two Dave’s can take the seats. You’ll see the whales just over here, right in front of us.”
Thanks!
“We’re making coffee, would you like some?
Yes, please!
“Also, we took some creeper pictures of you on the trail, I hope you don’t mind. We’ll show them to you.”
OK… OMG, those are amazing!
Oh, and it gets better! We explained that we were staying an extra day more than planned, so one of them said, “We are heading out tomorrow and have extra food, do you want a couple freeze dried dinners?”
Yes! We are happy to pay for them.
“No, everyone has been so generous, I want to give back.”
Thank you.
They also shared some snacks.
Thank you again!
“Here, give me your camera, we’ll take a picture of you on the chairs.”
So kind and generous!
After many more thanks and a wonderful conversation they left. Then as we were about to leave our 5 campfire friends showed up! We got to say our goodbyes, and got a photo (one one of their cameras, I don’t have it yet).
They followed us to our campsite and we said our final goodbyes.
More about Tsocowis, friends, and generosity later.
Decompression and Integration
After Tsocowis it was only 5km to the final possible campsite, Dave and I had an intentionally slow morning, and still got to the last campsite before noon. Again the first to arrive, we picked our favourite spot, built a chair near our campfire, and had everything in its place before anyone else arrived.
We didn’t do much the entire day, other than appreciate the fact that we had one more wonderful day to enjoy. The day bounced from very hot to cool depending on the cloud cover, and we spent most of the day enjoying the fact that we were supposed to be home and we still had more time that we created.
No agenda. No rush. Just being in the moment for as look as the moments lasted.
Another Routine Day
After 8 nights camping, Dave and I had tight routines from wake up to trail rest breaks. We were totally in sync. Getting from our final sleep to the trail end was as smooth as could be. We stopped to see a Sea Lion colony on the way, and we had two cold Coke Zeros and some potato chips as a final reward waiting in Dave’s camper Van that we also used in Tofino.
Literally Perfect
I don’t know if I can ever do the West Coast Trail again. The reality is that absolutely nothing went wrong. We had perfect weather. We agreed on every decision. We worked perfectly as a team. We made amazing connections. When our only complaint is that we didn’t have an evening tea, but still had warm drinks 4 of the 8 days, I’d say we pretty much had nothing to complain about. It would be almost impossible to have a repeat of this. The only way I’d do this trail again is with my wife and/or kids, but honestly, I think I’d prefer another trail so I don’t have this experience to compare it to.
I have so much more to share and that’s why this post started with WCT 1… more to come.
