day one (port renfrew to camper - 14 km)

ride to the ferry
butch's boat crossing to the trailhead

at the trailhead

first ladder....what a tease

first decent ladder

lunch

log crossing

donkey engine

6 km down....8 more to go

impassable beach access past thrasher

boardwalks

cable car into camper

trying to dry my socks

we woke up at 7 and matt made some bacon and eggs. we drove our car to evan's parking lot and he loaded us in the back of the truck and drove us to the trailhead ferry at butch's. the ferry service starts at 8:30 am. butch arrived in his boat on time with a couple that had missed last night's ferry....they thought they were done with the trail, missed the ferry, and had to spend another night on the trail. we loaded into butch's boat with another group and were dropped off at the trailhead. the west coast trail is 75 km and we were starting at the 75 km end and working our way to 0 km. the trail started off with a bang....hills, roots, and mud. this trail isn't about great elevations or any particular summit.....the inland route is just up and down. i was going full steam for the first 4 km. we stopped for lunch at creek and refill our waters. chris had a pump-style water purifier (msr miniworks ex filter) which i used and became a thorn in my side through0ut the trip....100+ pumps to refill my 2L platypus. after lunch we passed the old donkey engine.

a quick history of the trail: construction began in 1889 to install a telegraph wire as part of an international communication system from india to north america. January 22, 1906, the ship s.s. valencia crashed on the reef off pachena point and 126 people died. the trail was improved in 1907 to help survivors of shipwrecks. telegraph maintenance workers maintained the trail until 1954. In 1969, the canadian parks service included the west coast trail into the pacific rim national park. the parks people and logging companies clashed numerous times and large areas of land were cleared by the loggers. the donkey engine was used by loggers to haul trees.

back to the story.....our next stop was the beach access to thrasher cove. thrasher is a camp site on the ocean and where most people spend their first night when starting from port renfrew.....but we decided that we were going to do the hike in 6 days, so we had to double up a day. most of the blogs that i'd read that started from port renfrew and completed the hike in six days skipped thrasher and went straight to camper. here is where the first day got a little ugly. because the tides were high, we had continue on the inland trail for another 8 km. matt's knee was giving him problems and brandon's quads were locking up. the next 8 km was slow going and more hills, mud, roots with a few boardwalks thrown in. it had been sunny all day and all of the sudden a fog rolled in and blanketed the trees and the temperature lowered by ~10 degrees. everyone becomes tired and second guesses our route choice. we limp into camper at 8:00 pm....that last group into camp that night. we were exhausted and still had to set-up camp, start a fire, purify water, cook dinner, etc. a group of four women noticed our exhausted faces and offered up a camp site next to them and the use of their fire. we thanked them and set-up camp. we would follow the same group of hikers for the next five days. the women were from northwest canada. we also met two men we referred to as "the bobs", even though neither one of their names were bob. the next morning we met a couple from baffin island canada that had been dating for year. he was a red head so we referred to them as "team red". dinner, chatting with our new friends around the fire, a drink and we were in bed by 11.