DEATH ON THE WEST COAST TRAIL

I am back from a week in Victoria, and enumerating the things I didn’t get a chance to do. It’s always easy to find reasons for a return trip!

My friend Anna and I spent each morning at 7 PDT (my jet lag and her usual schedule made this possible as it was a comfortable 10 am EST for me) editing our respective books, and I am continuing the early morning habit as often as I can. She was editing 4000 words an hour, and I was hitting 400, with a lot of rewriting expected after that!

One major deficit in my short stay was not hitting the West Coast Trail. This trail has become so popular that you need a pass to hike on it in the high season or on shoulder season weekends, or to stay overnight at any time.. The 75 kilometre WCT runs on the Northwest edge of Victoria’s peninsula, from Port Renfrew to Bamfield. The direction may not just be a personal preference (the North part is the easier part), but what you can get permission to hike. Since your pack gets lighter as you go, North to South is reasonable, but if you like to get the hard part done early, South to North is recommended, with an estimated 6-8 days. You can also just split the trail and just do one section or the other.

The North section starts from Pachena Bay and ends at Walbran Creek. The South section starts from Walbran Creek and ends at Port Renfrew. While it is not a hike to be attempted by a novice, it has been predictably “unwilded” over time, and the challenge that it was previously has been replaced. This spoilage requires a wilderness etiquette to be taught to the new hikers of the “leave no trace” camping. This means that you pack it in and pack it out, and avoid constructing fires.

The first trail was made to in 1889 to connect a telegraph line from Victoria to Bamfield, where the old cable station now serves as Bamfield’s Marine Sciences Centre. It was named after a “federal Indian agent”, William Banfield, but a gazetteer misspelled it on a federal map, and it stayed Bamfield.  In 1906, the SS Valencia ran aground (many similar shipwrecks occurred along this stretch of the coast, giving it the name “Graveyard of the Pacific”), and 136 people died. One of the recommendations was to improve the rough telegraph path, known initially as the Life Saving Trail, or Shipwrecked Mariners Trail. 

By 1911, the trail was designated a public highway, with a 20 metre right of way, and government upkeep. In 1926, a national park reserve was created to include Nitinat Lake and the coastal trail. In 1947, the reserve status was lifted, and the forest industry began to encroach, starting as Clayoquot Cutting Circle. After WWI, the government abandoned upkeep in 1954, members of the Sierra Club in the 1960s began to hike and keep up the trail, and lobbied for a national park. Parks Canada eventually got involved, and the trail was repaired, from North to South, completed by 1983. In 1993, the trail was formally reestablished as the West Coast Trail Unit of Pacific Rim National Park Reserve.

I heard a story from a fellow Montrealer I met in Cathedral Grove, who hiked it one day alone. She heard growling both ways, which solidified my plan to find a hiking partner. I am more mentally prepared. I had hoped to hike part of it because one of my characters dies on it. Reading my library’s “Hiking the West Coast Trail”, by Tim Leadem this morning, I think I can find a number of ways it could happen.

Here are the cautions (and possibilities) most likely:

South trail is more difficult.

Tides for each day must be considered (see Canadian Hydrographic Service at www.waterlevels.gc.ca, available for Bamfield and Port Renfrew stations). High tide is also known as flood tide and low tide is known as ebb tide. Two of each tide occur a day, with some days only having three tides with varying heights, referred to as lower low tide (LLW and higher low tide). Previous tables were given in Standard time, but now are in PDT. In summertime, you used to need to add an hour.

Injuries are often caused by hurrying.

If poorly equipped, hypothermia is a real risk, given the dampness and cold even in midsummer. 

At several locations, crossing a stream on foot is necessary. 

Large animal home to cougars, black bears, and wolves (it’s dangerous being quiet, approaching or feeding bears, leaving food in your tent, wearing sweet smelling perfumes, playing dead with a black bear,  approaching bus).

The worst danger are occasional freak Pacific swells or rogue waves, particularly at surge channels, over rocks or sandstone swells. These occur even at low tides and are difficult to predict.

Nitinat narrows is hazardous with very fast currents and ocean breakers, and should be crossed only by boat. Many deaths by drowning occur here with a mix of fast currents and ocean breakers. Tidal currents of 8 knots create treacherous whirlpools. A ferry crosses as needed, May 1 to September 30. I would expect spring conditions associated with high water levels would increase potential danger.

Crossing streams and rivers can be treacherous if there is an incoming tide. The incoming sea acts as a dam to the outflow of water from the stream, resulting in a pooling effect, leading to deeper water levels and countercurrents.

Setting up camp at low tide has surprised more than camper with flooding and a moving tent. Camping is safest below winter high tide but above summer high tide.

Hiking the shore when the tides(they aren’t what you think they are. Listen to Neil Degrasse Tyson explain them here.) turn from low to high may result in cliffs that bar your progress or a surge channel, and even if you return, you may not be able to use the same path.

Rocks, logs, and cliffs can be slippery, and your foot placement can be at the edge of steep drops (no selfies on top of cliffs). Vegetation may deceive you, camouflaging a cliff. 

Footwear lacking good traction multiplies the danger of a fall. 

Wearing the hip belt attached when crossing a river has drowned hikers by their pack weighing them down when they slipped and fell into rushing water.

Toppled trees may block paths, and trails can be washed out. 

Elements such as mud, overgrown sections, high winds and downpours occur.

Other hikers, of malevolent intent or in need of help, may interfere with expected safety.

The entire national park falls within the traditional territory of the Nuu-chah-nulth people, and the trail passes by and through some private land. Quu’as guardians patrol all reserve lands. Camping and and trespassing is not allowed.

Red tide cause shellfish like mussels, clams, and oysters to be poisonous (paralytic shellfish poisoning).

Water may contain giardia lamblia and Esherichia coli.

Rationing meals you may run out of water, and dehydration in hot conditions can occur, as well as heatstroke.

No cell service to call for help.