hartt shoes HDR another testyness

hartt shoes HDR
Originally uploaded by searmid.

testying again

testing

Kenny 'Beedy Eye's' Smith

Kenny 'Beedy Eye's' Smith
Originally uploaded by Eh to Zed Photography.

I wish I had been this creative at his age.

not sure where this guy learned to play guitar, but I like his style.

ridiculous video games are often the best...

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.

wct04 - day five

Derek and Greg relax at Michigan Creek.

August 20, 2004

I am lying tonight in my tent listening to the sound of condensation dripping from the inside of my tent fly. A drop of water just trickled down my back. I may be wet in the morning.

Today was by far our laziest day on the trail. We reached the ‘anchor on rocks’ at trestle creek by 9 am and we had our tents pitched at Michigan Creek campsite by 1 pm. We owned the beach for most of the afternoon.


Greg stands alone at Michigan Creek.

I had a nap, as did Derek and, I think, Greg. For Greg, the usual first order of business when stopping for the day was to find a wide flat log suitable for basking on. He spent a fair amount of time with his eyes closed, lost in dreams both awake and not.

Greg talked a lot about his boys. He missed them. I felt bad about my phone not working. There were other hikers able to get reception, but my phone really is a piece of crap. Who knows, it may have been better for him in the end. What an opportunity to be away from everyone and everything for a week. Besides, I don’t think the batteries would have lasted.

Drip, drip, drip. It sounds a familiar refrain from another trip. [I'm not sure what trip I was referring to.]

We’ll be off the trail tomorrow. It will probably be odd to not have the sound of surf to go to sleep to. This whole trip has been a load of fun and I am sorry to see it coming to an end.

We played Yahtzee again this evening and again I rolled a Yahtzee and finished with a stellar score. I lost the 2nd game however. We followed this up with a few games of five-thousand. They caught on fast. Of the two games I think Yahtzee is more fun.

My body doesn’t ache tonight. It is hard to believe that by 1 pmish tomorrow we will have traveled 75 km on foot. Remarkable under the best of conditions, which we were fortunate to have.

I am ready for so many things in life now. I want to tell Meaghan all about them. Right now though, I just want to sleep. I look forward to drifting off to the rhythm of the waves on the beach and the soft pattering of the dew drips inside my tent.

Once my body and mind adjusted to the hike I spent a fair amount of time taking photos. The photo I was taking is here.
photo credit:GregNorthVancouver.

Ah, yes, the last night brought with it heavy fog, followed by really heavy mist, followed by drizzle. It was the kind of precipitation that didn't really fall. It lingered in the air, soaking everything it came in touch with. Lying in my tent that night I realized just how fortunate I was the weather on our trip had been good. My tent was as waterproof as a sieve. I hadn't used it in years, not since Meaghan and I got a larger tent as a wedding gift. Things would have been pretty tight if the three of us had had to share Derek's tent. I cannot imagine how rank the air would have been inside it. On the other hand I likely would have ditched the Tarn and saved some weight in my pack. Hmph. Prior to heading to Yoho last summer I tried to avoid the drip, dripping, by resealing the fly. No luck.

In a previous post I mentioned trail etiquette and the etiquette-deficiency of some of those with whom I shared the trail. But beyond etiquette there are certain rules that back country hikers need to abide by. Etiquette, like burying human waste or packing out trash, eases the burden on the environment. Basic human etiquette allows trail weary campers to get along. A lack of etiquette likely won't kill you, although I can think of a few hikers that came close to dying in their sleep at the hands of other hikers. Rules on the other hand usually save lives; for instance, staying off some of the nastier beaches at high tide, or, say, storing food properly.

We shared Michigan Creek campsite this night with, among others, a group of hikers who were full of bravado, energy and cockiness. It was their first night on the trail, having set out from Bamfield, and one or two of the more boisterous members of the group were 'teaching' the others how to do the back country thing properly. It was scary. I recall one of them pulled out a long-bladed hunting knife at any opportunity, and another guided the group through food prep - how hard can that be? Boil water, add to food, wait, eat.

But the scariest thing was how they stored their food for the night. Like most of the campsites, Michigan Creek had a locker available for food and trash. It was set up away from the camping area, to steer any wayward bears away from campers. But it seems these guys wanted to show off their back-woodsiness by hanging their food from a tree. The night before, this is something we had no choice but to do. There were no food lockers at Klanawa Creek. But it was something we did responsibly. The food was many metres off the ground and away from our tents. Our Michigan Creek neighbors on the other hand hung their food just outside their campsite - three feet off the ground. Yes, it was secure from squirrels and raccoons, safe from sand fleas, but it was left at buffet level for any bear that happened to wander along the beach. Derek, Greg and I, while immersed in a game of Yahtzee, darkly hoped the guys who hung the food bag kept secret stashes of food tucked away in their tents. Better they be meals than us.


Stupidity kills. The red, blurry thing in the background is a bag of food left dangling tantalizingly close to the ground.
photo credit:GregNorthVancouver.

A daily ritual, usually performed both prior to hitting the trail and once we got off it, was water filtration. Using Derek's pump we would take turns gathering potable water. At around 80 pumps per litre and six to eight litres gathered at a time that was a lot of elbow action. On this occasion I was at the creek gathering water with Greg - he was pumping(now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I did not do my fair share of pumping) - at the same time another man was filling up his own water bottles. His 12-year-old son was with him. They had hit the trail that morning in Bamfield and this was their first night of a bonding journey.

The son was full of energy, bounding around the creek from rock to rock, talking excitedly about the day they had finished, and the days left before them. I looked out at the Pacific Ocean, and the fog, and then at the sky and the heavy cloud and wondered if it wouldn't be wise for the kid to save some of his energy for the rest of the hike. I've thought about them many times since that encounter. Both were full of optimism, but I wonder if the torrential rain that came the following day somehow took an edge off their exuberance.


The loo at Michigan Creek.

wct04 - day four

Every day of hiking ended with a cup of Earl Grey.

August 19, 2004

As we set up our tents for the evening, Greg lamented that we have only one night left on the trail after this. Easy to understand, I feel the same way. But, I’m also starting to stink and it has been a while since I saw Meaghan last. I miss her.


Night falls on the beach at Klanawa River.

The nights, evenings and, more recently, the afternoons have proven to be relaxing and beautiful.

Last night the whole sunset extravaganza, right down to silhouetted couples strolling through the sunfire at the oceans edge, seemed scripted for a film. It was marvelous. Tonight, the fire and the stars stand out. Our first night is a distant memory ( I remember the sense on the first night, back at campers cove, of being a member of the walking wounded) and I can only lay back and relish the freshness of the evening.

My shoulders hurt for awhile today and later in the day it felt like my Achilles was starting to stiffen up. I took some calcium and we’ll see in the morning how my body feels. Both slowed me throughout the day. The additional weight of the water taken on at Nitinat Narrows didn’t help much.

I can hardly wait to see Meaghan. I think that she’ll be proud of me for completing the trail in one piece. That’s something that matters to me. I am glad, though, that I am away from her for a little while: it let’s me think about her more.

We skipped Tsutsiat Falls for camping. In fact we didn’t even go down to the beach to see what it was all about, I think mainly because I didn’t want to deal with the ladders. Besides, here come the sour grapes, it didn’t look like much from the trail anyway.


Klanawa River beach. We used a cable car to cross the Klanawa River.

We continued for another kilometer to the Klanawa River site instead. Tonight there is only one other group camping on the beach with us. In the early evening a couple of kayakers pulled their boats up the beach and pitched their tents 40 meters to the south. The solitude leads me to think that we decided well to forgo the crowded scenery of Tsutsiat Falls.

The crossing at Nitinat Narrows was full. This is one of my favourite photos from the trip.

At Nitinat Narrows the character and class of some of my fellow hikers was fully exposed. On the one hand there was a group of four or six women doing the hike. This was our first up close and personal with them, and for the rest of the trip we kept crossing each other's paths. I can't remember any details about them except they were perpetually cheery and lighthearted in their approach to the hike. One woman had flown from Nova Scotia for the hike.


Nitinat Narrows.

On the the other hand, there was a family of hikers that was a drag to be around- while boarding the boat I 'accidentally' stabbed the mother in the back with my walking pole. The red-headed daughter was impertinent and it seemed the mother was mentoring her in impertinence, as well as indignance and obnoxiousness. I remember on the last night watching in horror as the daughter, when asked to clean up after dinner, threw all the plastic meal bags on the fire. I wanted to brain her. Her father, whipped to the bone by his wife, puttered along the trail in a meek sort of daze, powerless to reign in the rest of the family.

'We skipped Tsutsiat Falls ... ' I was feeling a little weary when we came to the side trail that leads down to the beach and the falls. I didn't look at any websites or photoblogs about the WCT prior to doing the hike and didn't have any idea of how striking the falls are. Part of me wishes I had taken the time to go down to check them out, take a picture or two. But there were ladders to descend (and for every ladder down there's usually a ladder up,) and by this point I had had my fill of climbing up and down ladders. I learned later that because of its beauty Tsutsiat Falls is the most popular camping area on the trail and is usually quite crowded. In fact while we looked longingly down the path to the beach two groups of campers made their way down for the night. Our decision to spend the night mostly alone at Klanawa River was indeed a wise one.