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Day 2 Camper Bay - Walbran Creek (9 km)
The sky was getting bright when our alarms went off at 6:00 am. I stretched
my body slightly and felt that every muscle from my waist down was sore. I
remembered that it rained in the middle of the night and it was so cold
that I had to tuck my head into the sleeping bag. Looking at the roof of
the tent, I was amazed by the dryness and warmth this little nylon and
polyester thing provided.
We picked up our courage and stepped on to the wet and cold beach. It was
time to put some hot fluid and food into our bodies again. I started to
understand the feelings that Andy McNab described in his books. Sometimes,
being warm and dry could be quite a luxury. John started boiling water on
the damn stove again. As before, the water did not boil after 20 minutes.
While we were bitterly complaining about the stove, John figured out the
proper way of using the stove. We had to pressurize the fuel more in order
to get a Bunsen burner kind of flame!
The minute that we finished our 800 calorie breakfast, it started raining.
We had to put on our rain gear quickly. I stared at the gray sky and sighed
- another wet and long day! We visited the new luxury facility provided by
Parks Canada - the outhouse! I spoke to a lady in her late forties whose
hiking boots fell apart during the first couple days of hiking. What a
terrible situation to be in!
We started the hike by climbing up the hill behind our campsite. Our bodies
were well rested and energized after a long night of sleep. It was still
raining, but we didn’t really care because our clothes were still wet from
yesterday’s rain anyway. At least my “dry fit” seemed to be kind of dry
again. There were a lot of puddles and roots on the trail. We were told
that the trail would become significantly easier after Logan Creek, which
was two-thirds mark of our hike today.
An hour after we started moving, the rain stopped. We moved quickly.
Puddles, roots and logs would not stop us at all. There seemed to be a lot
more ladders today. Almost every time we crossed a creek, we had to go down
a couple set of ladders to get down to the bridge and climbed up a couple
set of ladders at the other end of the bridge. Sometimes, there was no
proper bridge or boardwalk to cross the creeks. A giant log could be the
only creek crossing in some occasions. It freaked me out because I was not
particularly good at balancing myself on the slippery log with 25 pounds of
weight on my back.
I let out a painful cry “Oh no!” when we reached Cullite Creek. There were
5-7 sets of long ladders leading down to the cable car. These sets of
ladders were longer and steeper than the ones that we had seen before. John
climbed down first, then I followed. We assured each other to take the
ladders slowly and be extra careful before each go. At the end of the first
ladder, a couple of young hikers caught up with us. They were moving so
swiftly on the ladders that I secretly called the guy the “Catman”. I
offered them to go down the next ladder before me, but Catman told me that
they would pass us later and assured me to take my time with the stairs and
travel safely. They even stayed behind us for a while to make sure that we
don’t feel pressured to move quickly. I was very thankful.
After 15 minutes of struggle and straining our muscles, we finally finished
all the ladders down. John and I had a big kiss to celebrate. We let Catman
and his wife hop on the cable car first and thanked them for their
patience. And we would see them at Walbran later. Then we loaded our bags
and ourselves into the deluxe two seater. It was really cool to be in a
cable car for the first half of the journey because gravity pulled you down
to the center of the creek. The second part could be hellish because you
had to pull yourself to the other side of the creek.
We got off the cable car. Catman and his wife were totally out of sight.
They were young and energetic. But I noticed a big backpack left on the
cable car tower. There was nobody nearby. Both of us wondered what happened
to the owner of the pack. At this moment, it started raining quite heavily.
We moved along the trail and reached the bottom of 5-7 sets of ladders
going up. I felt tired and weak. John noticed my low energy and suggested
we take a snack break. While we were munching on our granola bars, two
people came down the stairs very slowly. One of them had a backpack and the
other one did not. When they same closer, we noticed the one with the pack
was a man, and the one without was a woman with a pissed off look. We
greeted each other. The man said, “This is my third time on these ladders.”
John and I realized that he was the owner of the pack at the cable car
tower. He had to climb up the ladders to carry his wife’s pack for her.
Wow, I was pretty sure that it was not her idea to hike the West Coast
Trail from her look.
We finished our snacks and started climbing with our tired limbs. We ran
into four guys going down the ladders. One of them said, “I love my wife.
But I still won’t carry her pack for her.” We felt sorry for the guy who
did so as well because he had to climb the ladders back up the mountain at
the other side of the cable car as well.
Climbing up took more energy, but it was actually easier on my leg muscles.
We took a break at the end of the ladders. Two hikers traveling the
opposite direction joined us for the break. We exchanged information on the
hike. They were trying to finish the trail in four days which seemed to be
very strenuous. They hiked 25 km on the first day, and 21 km on the second
day on the easier terrain. They seemed to be better prepared in terms of
their food selection. The guy was mixing Gatorade powder with his filtered
water, and the woman was eating crackers and cheese strips. Yum! I would
love to have a bite of cheese at this moment.
I really looked forward to reaching Logan Creek, one of the big rivers we
would cross. But this long mud trail seemed extremely long. The depressing
thing about climbing up and down the ladders was that you used all your
energy and muscle strength to do so. But you only make ten meters of
distance on the map. After another hour of hiking, we finally saw the
suspension bridge that led to Logan. The bridge was long and narrow. Only 6
people, or preferably fewer, can be on the bridge at any time. We were
excited and took a bunch of pictures on the bridge. It looked like a set in
Indiana Jones.
There was a long boardwalk after the suspension bridge. It was a luxury
because the boardwalk was dry and even, and the sun was out. We thought
this would be the turning point of our day. Unfortunately, all good things
come to an end. There were more mud and roots waiting for us at the end of
the boardwalk. My legs were so tired that I climbed up a log with my hands
but I could not lift myself up to my feet for a minute. For a while, we
thought we might have missed to turn off to Walbran campsite because we saw
the cable car at Walbran Creek.
We arrived at Walbran campsite at 4:30. It was a beautiful site with
hundreds of seagulls resting in the river. There was a big rock mountain on
the other side of the river. And we could hear the waves from the ocean on
the other side of the beach. We were greeted by other hikers who had
arrived earlier and had set up their tents. We dropped everything and sat
by the river and washed ourselves clean. The water was cold and clean. We
could see little fish swimming next to our sore toes. Walbran seemed to be
a paradise with our clean and dry clothes on and the warmth of the sun
shining on us.
Campers were busy setting up their tents and cooking dinner. We set up our
clothes line and the tent in an attempt to get things dry. I started
cooking rice to serve with our curry packages. I did a good job in cooking
the rice without an electrical rice cooker. They should have me on
Survivor. At least I would cook the rice well. When I went to clean up the
pots, somebody said “howdy” to me. I looked and saw Catman! He was
filtering water by the river. It felt great to see a familiar face here.
If you think that you have nothing to do when you are in the middle of
nowhere, you are absolutely wrong. There were so many chores to do. It made
you appreciate the efficiency civilization provides. John was busy fixing
up our thermarest, which had sprung a leak. Our friends Amanda and Gordon
camped right next to us and they were busy with their cooking and setting
up a campfire. The four of us sat by the campfire and had a good chat.
Gordon and I tried to BBQ our socks dry. Our efforts were to prove a
failure when he burnt the heel of a sock while the remaining part of the
sock was still wet. They gave us a box of matches since we could not find
our lighter. We offered them green tea bags and some melatonin.
By the time we went to bed, we were so tired. Every muscle from my collar
bone to the toenails (except the abs) was sore. John fell asleep quickly. I
tossed around a little bit and tried to stretch out my leg muscles in the
sleeping bag. Tomorrow would be an easy hike!
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