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Day
1 Gordon River - Camper Bay (13 km)
John and I woke up early being all excited about our adventure. I looked out
the window – it was raining. The first rain in the past 2 months. Great! This
was just want we need to kick off our hike. We decided to skip the
continental breakfast at our B&B. We had an important mission to
accomplish today-- we needed to be carb & fat loaded! We drove off to the
Port Renfrew Hotel, which was conveniently located next to Stan’s place (you
will find out the many services that Stan provides later). We were there half
an hour too early. The restaurant opened at 8:00 a.m.. So we reclined our
chairs in the car and listened to the rain hitting the windshield for half an
hour. There was no radio reception in this area.
After our sumptuous “Fishermen’s breakfast” (I guess fishermen have a tougher
life than lumberjacks in this part of the world), we parked our rental car at
Stan’s front yard. Stan would take care of our car while we were hiking for
the rest of the week. Stan’s wife claimed that she would shoot trespassers.
Well, we were in Canada. She probably had a water gun from Toys R Us. Stan
drove us off to Butch’s house, who was supposed to take us across the river
to the trailhead.
It was still raining. We parked ourselves under the roof of Butch’s house.
The TV was on and I could see the extended weather forecast seemed to be not
so great. Across the river, the trees and mountains were in the cloud. The
scenery was breathtaking and reminded me of Lord of The Rings. Butch showed
up 15 minutes late. Hey, it was not too bad since we were used to the New
York City subway schedule. He told us that he was glued to his TV on
September 11th last year. It was good to know that people around the world
cared about what happened to us. The two minute ferry ride ended quickly. We
were at the Gordon River trailhead now!
We waved to Butch as he departed. My heart was pounding hard. Wow, I couldn’t
believe that I was doing this. We were left alone in the “wilderness” for a
week and we had to walk out of there. I got even more excited when I saw the
yellow and black cougar warning sign. There we go!
John and I had our rain shells on. We also had pack covers to protect our
backpacks from getting wet. A wet pack weighs more than a dry pack! We
started climbing up the hill. As we knew, the first 2 days would be the
hardest part of the hike because we had to cover much tougher terrain. There
were a lot of ups and downs on the trail. Some of the trees were so huge that
their roots made some quite interesting mud puddles for us to conquer. After
a while I was annoyed at my hood for interfering with my vision and hearing.
So I put on a baseball cap under the hood. An hour into our hike, John and I
were both happy with our high quality waterproof hiking boots as our little
toes were dry. And I bragged to him about my Nike “dry fit” pants provided me
the dry feeling even though they were wet.
About 2 hours later, we saw some people coming the opposite direction. They
were well protected from the rain and well geared with their hiking poles. We
greeted each other and exchanged some information from the direction that we
came from. We met a few groups of people on the last day of their hike in the
next hour. A girl with exactly the same hiking boots as mine was walking very
slowly because she had a pretty bad ankle injury. We stopped on a bridge and
drank some water to easy our load. John took some pictures. It was quite a
major effort to take a picture. First he had to take off his backpack, and
remove the rain cover. Then, he had to open an umbrella (can you believe that
we brought an umbrella for the camera but not ourselves). Last, he had to
take out the camera, which was nicely wrapped in a Ziplock bag in his
backpack. It took about 10 minutes every time we stopped to take pictures. I
started to get annoyed. But I was certain that I would appreciate his efforts
from our numerous previous experiences.
An accident happened while we were crossing a bridge. I slipped and fell. For
a few seconds, both of us were thinking, “Oh no, Gloria might have hurt
herself so badly that she needs to be evacuated!” But after moaning with my
butt on my right knee (what an awkward position) for a minute, I figured out
there was no major damage. I got up and we continued our journey. We came to
a break on another bridge later. We had two granola bars each. My world
suddenly turned brighter as we each shovelled two granola bars down the
stomach. I guess I am not the perfect candidate for a hunger strike.
The rain showed no sign of slowing down. Fortunately, we were deep in the
rain forest. A lot of the rain coming down had been absorbed by the trees,
and what came through pooled up on the rough ground. At any given time, there
was actually more water below us than above us. But the bad news was that
there were a lot of water and mud puddles. The ones that were trapped in
between roots were particularly tricky to get around. John was very good at
balancing himself and hopping from root to root. I, being brought up in
apartments, had difficulties in coordinating my limbs to catch up with him.
He had to stop and wait for me from time to time. Other than the roots, I
really did not like the logs. John referred the logs as “highways”. They were
fallen tree bodies that varied in size. Some of the very large ones had steps
carved into the logs. We had to hop on to the logs and walked like as if we
were on a balance beam. The logs were slippery since it was raining. I got
particularly nervous if the log was above a deep ditch or a river. I wiped
out on a boardwalk, moaning in the same position as I was on the bridge.
My legs and ankles were sore from all the root hopping. I was frustrated for
not moving faster. I decided to change my strategy - I would not hop on the
roots anymore. My boots and socks were all wet from the puddles and the water
dripping down my legs. And my “dry fit” were far from being dry. I walked
through the puddles thinking my boots would not get any wetter. I caught up
with John and we were making great progress. I was happily bragging about my
new strategy when I stepped into a BIG mud puddle. I sank until the mud
covered my knees. John turned around and laughed when he saw me “standing” at
3 feet 10. I pulled myself out of the mud and cheerfully continued on the
hike. I managed to wipe out once more on a root before we passed four ladies
on the trail.
It stopped raining by now, we could see the smoke of a campfire rising ahead
of us. We sped up because we were both starving. We were expecting to see a
cable car soon and it would be the end of our first day’s hike. Finally, we
saw a ladder that lead to the cable car. John climbed up the ladder first, I
followed and I was quite proud of myself for climbing up the ladder with 25
pounds on my back. It was so wonderful to sit in this very primitive cable
car. We could finally take of our packs and sat down for 2 minutes. A kind
gentleman at the other end helped pull us over. We thanked him and climbed
down the ladder onto the beach.
Camper Bay was peaceful at 6:30 in the evening. A few tents had been set up
and some people looked like they just finished dinner. We found a flat place
and settled down. I went to the river to wash off the mud on my socks and
boots. John collected some water and started boiling it on our brand new
stove. We bought the stove for this hike. But we did not have any chance to
practice with it because it was virtually impossible to buy fuel in
Manhattan. John followed the instructions and set up a fire on the stove. I
had changed to dry clothes and shoes. I told him to clean up and get dry
while I was guarding the water. I needed a cup of hot tea and some hot food
so badly. It was getting dark. Nights in Canada were pretty chilly even
though we were technically still in the summer. I waited and waited and saw a
bubble came up. I got excited and told John that the water was boiling. He
peeped at it and said he would like it to boil for five more minutes. My eyes
were busy checking out my watch and the water. Five minutes went by, the
number of bubbles at the bottom of the pot did not increase. I declared five
minutes had gone and I was going to make my tea. John insisted that the water
was not boiling and we should wait for another few more minutes for safety. I
was freezing and starving. I fixed my eyes on the water and noticed the
bubbles started to disappear. I pleaded with John to let me have some tea and
food, otherwise I would pass out. When he poured the water into my tea cup,
my hands were shaking seriously.
While we were having our delicious Mountain House dinner and Earl Grey tea, a
couple of girls walked by and invited us to join them at their camp fire. I
jumped at the opportunity because I was still wet and cold despite the hot
food and liquid that I just poured into my body. Most of the people at the
camp fire were heading the opposite direction. There were two of them
traveling the same direction as we were. The couple was from Calgary. Gordon
was a computer programmer who was interested in the game industry. Amanda, a
strawberry blonde vegan, was a elementary school teacher and had taught
English In Korea for a year and Tokyo for 3 years. We also met a German guy
was from Stuttgart, who discouraged us from exploring employment
opportunities in Munich because it was an expensive city. Of course, the word
“expensive” would not mean much to us New Yorkers in most regards.
At around 9 o’clock, John and I changed to our fresh dry clothes wrapped in
Ziplock bags and went to “bed”, which consisted two three-season sleeping
bags and a couple of thermarests. We decided to give each other foot massages
before falling asleep. It was a wonderful idea and we fell asleep quickly.
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