Adventures on the West Coast Trail, B.C Canada

                                                                Marge Prothman and Carol Brown

                                                                                   July 2000


We had hoped to go on the Pacific Crest Trail, but there was too much snow and ice on the final section from Rainy Pass to Manning Park B.C.  I had hiked "The West Coast Trail" in l995. At that time I said I would never do it again, but I think my memory left me in order to do something which my daughter had not hiked.. 

There are no words to describe this trail, you have to book ahead and pay 125 Canadian Dollars for the privilege of hiking this trail and it is booked up for the summer months by May 31st. They do however let six  non reserved people on at each end of the trail each day. This is how we got on.

It only has about 600 feet elevation and is 75K. Sounds like a piece of cake huh? My daughter thought we would be out in five days easily. The first day we hiked 3 1/2K tops. However most of this was due to my slowness and apprehension of my leg. I had broken it in early May of this year and this was my first hiking trip since. We camped just off the trail on a small rocky spot by a creek. The trail follows an old telegraph line and we hiked South to North to get the hardest part over during the first three days.

The first day the trail was a root system that goes up and down and you are scrambling with your hands on the roots. This is coupled with lots and lots of mud, which never dries up. We were very lucky, we had no rain during the six days nor on the seventh morning as we walked out. With the roots and the mud  you have the ladders to contend with. You climb down the ladders in each drainages or ravines, then climb back up the ladders on the other side. There would be three or four ladders each side in deep drainages. There was only one ladder system  which I could not climb with my pack on.  It had about 44 rungs and that was too much for me. It was straight up and the rungs were a little further apart.  On this set my daughter took my pack up, and then came back down for her own.  I could manage the ladder without my pack and holding on with both hands. There  were numerous log crossing, some which were kind of high, I managed to walk on them all. 

There were 3 river crossing done in cable cars which were really hard to pull up On one of these crossings we noted the timbers leading up to the platform were new.  A few weeks earlier this tower had collapsed and my long time hiking friend Pat Gutherie and her son were on it. She had layed there on the rocks with cracked vertabrae until a helicopter came and took her to the hospital in Victoria B.C. 

We crossed long suspension bridges and miles of slippery (when wet) rotten boardwalk and of course the mud holes all the way. There also were lots of nice little bridges  and new boardwalk which we complimented the trail crew. we had a few fords of small creeks. There were numerous creeks that emptied out into the ocean, so fresh water was plentiful.


The best part was the beach, here we camped most nights at established locations with an outhouse. We were able to have a fire on the beach and cooked over this fire.. My titanium cook pot is now really black. When the tide is way out you are able to walk on the ocean shelf ,which has a real hard surface, but watch out for that green stuff, it is very slippery. I fell once in a large pot hole of water, however everything dried off as I walked. Everything inside my pack was encased in plastic so nothing got wet. The wet sand right by the surf was good to hike in also as it stayed firm. You had to watch your tide charts especially near the surge channels, you sure did not want to get stranded between two of them. Walking in the heavy sand was hard and some of it reminded me of the sand on the southern PCT.

As we rounded a point on the beach we came to “Chez Moniques”. When I had hiked the trail in l995 this was a small hot dog and beer stand. Now it is a large frame encased in plastic walls.. You can order hamburgers and they had a huge supply of various goodies and drinks and groceries. There were a number of hikers there as it was lunchtime and the hamburgers were being fried. They smelled good.

At one point a small river came down from a high cliff and  formed a wide cliff waterfall. We were the first ones in to camp that day and we could see for miles up the beach, so it was skinny dipping time as no one was coming in either direction,.
Skinny dipping under this waterfall felt like a pressure washer, but we got clean. Everyone had some sort of a bath at that location.

On the trail and on the beach there would be old buoys hung up, to let you know there was beach and trail access there. So when ever possible we walked the beach. (No mud). This part of the coast we walked is well noted for the Shipwrecks and there still are parts laying on the beach. I think there were 3 lighthouses in a 20 mile stretch. I saw what I thought was a big yellow peeled log, so decided it would be a good place to sit and rest for a few moments.  Well, it was not a log but a beached dead whale.

Our last night was terrific, it was bright moonlight on our camp and on the water.  We sat up in our sleeping bags just inside tarp-tent and watched the big cruise ships going to Alaska. Lots of  fond memories of this night.

The entire trip was really great, after the first few days I got over being apprehensive of my leg, it worked just fine. My daughter and I had a terrific time together. She was in charge of hanging the food and making the fires. The only time I saw a look of something or other on her face was at the gas pumps. We took turns paying for the gas in the car. She got the first filling in B.C. It was .72 cents a liter and that fill was 38.00 but I told her when you factor in the Exchange rate it would be okay on her charge card.

The West Coast trail was a test for my leg, I wore the elastic stocking with a soft brace with plastic sides that laced up my foot and went right into my hiking boot. The first day I was so apprehensive I could hardly stand on that leg while dropping down from roots etc. By the 3rd day I was stepping out and not favoring that leg. 

We were lucky with the weather, lucky that neither of us got hurt on the roots, or fell off any ladders. We were very careful.








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