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Day 5 Tsusiat
Fall - Pachena Trailhead (25 km)
We felt rejuvenated after 11 blissful hours of sleep. We checked the tide
tables and decided to start the day later so that we could hike on the beach.
Our plan was to hike 13 km to Michigan Creek. It should be an easy day. So we
slowly ate our breakfast, sat in the sun chatting and finally got ready at
9:30 a.m.. Our first challenge of the day was to climb up four or five set of
ladders from the beach to the trail. I took a Tylenol to get myself prepared.
John suggested that we carry only 1 liter of water for the two of us since
our water consumption rate had been very low in the past few days. After we
were well prepared, we headed towards the ladders.
At the bottom of the ladders, we were joint by a “foursome” - two Caucasian
girls, one beefy Caucasian guy and an Asian man. We let them pass us at the
top of the ladder. Five minutes later, Amanda and Gordon passed us. We
secured our third place on the trail heading towards Michigan Creek.
There was a reunion of all the early starters at the cable car crossing at
Klanawa River. The beefy guy had a bite of Amanda’s cereal bar and said,
“Yuck, tastes like ass. Do you want to try it?” He passed the bar to the
Asian guy. Amanda challenged him how he knew the taste of ass was like. It
took 15 minutes for all of us to get across the river. Everybody vanished
from our sight after John finished making a reservation for the shuttle bus
on his cell phone (he had been trying for days and finally had reception on
top of the cable car tower).
We hiked on the beach. The tide was not low enough for us to hike on the
coral shelf. We hopped on rocks. The sky was getting dark in front of us. We
saw the clouds moving into the mountains ahead. This portion of the beach was
harder to hike on than the previous ones. But we heard from other hikers that
the trail would have been a lot harder because it was overgrown. We ran into
a guy who was on his third time hiking on the West Coast Trail. He assured us
that there would not be rain for at least a few more days, as well as the
easiness of the trail ahead of us. Far ahead of us, we saw the shadows of the
foursome from time to time.
According to our map, we had to head back to the trail at km 20 because the
beach would become impassable. We tried several so-labeled “beach accesses”,
but all of them were overgrown and were in very poor condition. It took us
quite a while to spot a decent access to the trail, which was hidden behind a
bunch of drift logs. We sat on the log and ate a Snickers bar each and drank
some water. Our position convenient marked the beach access for 4 young guys
heading in the same direction.
The trail was pretty flat and dry at this part. We were making great
progress. John suggested that we could try to finish the trail today if we
arrived at Michigan Creek early. I agreed and we decided that we would
continue if we reach Michigan by 3:30. From the trail, we could see some
beautiful beaches which could only be accessible by boat.
We arrived at Michigan Creek at 3:00 p.m. I saw the foursome just started
their stove to cook lunch. Gordon and Amanda were sitting on the logs and
eating their energy bars. We sat down next to them and took out our last 2
Snickers bars. I felt that John was weak so I offered him an extra bite of
mine. That cheered him up. I went to refill our water bottle and took another
Tylenol. We said to Gordon and Amanda, “See you tomorrow!”
Everybody had been telling us that the last 12 km of the trail was easy.
Actually, it was not that easy from km 12 to 11. We actually had to step in
some mud puddles, and at a point climbed up a slope with some ropes. But we
made it in 22 minutes. That was very encouraging!
From km 11 onwards, the trail get significantly flatter and wider. At some
stage, John and I could hike side by side. We were going at 15-17 minutes per
kilometer. We had a granola bar break at km 7. We ran into some “freshies”
who had been on the trail for less than 2 hours. I could smell one cleanly
shaved guy’s cologne. I wonder if he could smell my “French cheese” shirt.
When it came to flat surface, I could move faster than John. Also, I could
perform much better if I could see the end of a strenuous process. I noticed
that John had been quiet and looked exhausted. I tried to find some
interesting topics to talk to him so that he would stay awake. We noticed
that the km 4 mark must had been misplaced. It took us more than 20 minutes
from km 6 to 5, but only 12 minutes from km 5 to 4 (our hypothesis that the
marker was misplaced was agreed with by Jeff and Elise later). At km 3, we
stopped and finished the last granola bar and the water. We looked at the
trail ahead of us and said, “We are troopers. We can finish this.”
At km 1, we cheered loudly. By now, we could see Pachena Beach and some human
activities nearby. I had tears in my eyes because we were so close to the
trailhead. We walked on bridge #2 which was a long narrow bridge at Clonard
Creek. One more bridge to go and that would be the end! Bridge #1 was a tiny
zig zag wood structure. I would not choose to call it a bridge.
We desperately looked for the km 0 mark and planned to take a picture in
front of it. But there was no km 0 mark when we noticed the registration
office. We walked to the registration office. It was 7 pm and the office had
closed. We had been told to phone “Wayne” who would drive us from the
trailhead to the town of Bamfield. We could only get through to Wayne’s voice
mail. I started calling some hotels. Rose’s B&B had a vacant room with 2
single beds. Rose didn’t want to pick us up however, she recommended me to
try Wayne again. I tried to call a few other places. But they were either
filled up or showed no interest to take freshly off the trail hikers. John
was tired and upset at some little bugs biting on his legs. He sat on the
floor.
20 minutes later, while I was still frantically trying to find us a way to
get into town, the foursome arrived. John told them the bad news that we
could not get transportation. Another five minutes later, Amanda and Gordon
arrived. And within two minutes, two more guys arrived. Great, now we had ten
people exhausted and with nowhere to go. I tried to call Wayne twice, still
no answer. John decided to call Rose’s B&B again. It must be his charming
Canadian voice, Rose told us that her husband would come to pick us up in a
white pickup truck.
Clive, Rose’s husband showed up at the car park and took John and me,
together with the last two guys with him. On our way out, we saw Wayne’s
shuttle heading towards us. Wayne gave Clive a nasty look as he drove by
slowly. Clive stopped the truck and backed up to Wayne to do some explanation
about the truck load of people with him. We saw another two vans heading
towards the trailhead later. Wow, the whole town of Bamfield had responded to
us!
Clive dropped the two guys off at The Pub (the hopping place in town that
serves food until 10 pm) and then drove us to the B&B. We were greeted by
Rose, who was very friendly. We took off our boots outside the house and went
into the room. Rose showed us the room and turned up the heat in the room. We
took out our last set of clean clothes from the ziplock bags and hopped into
the shower together! It was not fair for anyone to take it first, so we would
go together. The shower was hot and the water pressure was strong. It was the
BEST shower in my life!
We walked like old turtles from the B&B to The Pub. At the parking lot,
we saw the foursome eating from takeout boxes. They told us that Wayne would
drive them back to Victoria for $100 each that night. They shuffled into
Wayne’s van before they finished their dinner. We went to The Pub and saw 4
backpacks outside the restaurant. Inside, Amanda, Gordon and the other 2 guys
were in the middle of their meal. We said hi and sat down near them. We each
ordered a diet Coke (we were concerning our weight after we just burnt off
thousands of calories that day) and cheese burger with bacon and mushrooms.
While we were finishing our food, I stared at the fries in my plate and asked
John, “Do you know what’s on my mind?” He replied, “Logs. I’m thinking about
the same thing!” We laughed and pointed at the fries pretending to hop from
one log to another!
Before we headed for bed, a real bed, we soaked our very sore bodies in the
hot tub at the hotel. Our bodies cheered. What a wonderful experience we had
just gone through. We went through a strenuous 5-day hike in the wilderness.
We took turns to encourage each other when the other person was down. We
overcame all the obstacles together and enjoyed each other’s company and
love. Good night Bamfield! Goodbye West Coast Trail!
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