Cape Sutil to San Joseph Beach
This post is a roast to the North Coast Trail, a newer member of long-distance routes along the coastline of Vancouver Island. The North Coast Trail is either for masochists or sadists, depending on who you are or who you're with, and the three inches of rain that fell on the first day certainly didn't help, either.
"We got more rain on Monday than we've had all summer," the ranger at Nels Bight told us.
Monday morning we leaped—literally—from the bow of a boat to a barnacle-covered rock face.
"It's not too late to come back with me," the captain yelled through the rain as four of us clung, white-knuckled, to the thin metal railing. Each of us had our heavy packs strapped on. It crossed my mind that if I slipped during an errant wave my pack, heavy with six days worth of supplies, would immediately anchor me to the bottom of the ocean.
But alas we cleared the hop. "Follow the orange markers," the captain reminded us before splitting back to Port Hardy. He dropped myself, my friend Katie, and a mother-daughter duo off on a remote stretch of north Vancouver Island called Cape Sutil. Katie and I were supposed to start at Shushartie, but made a game-day decision based on the weather to skip the Shushartie-to-Cape Sutil section (it saved us having to hike across a notoriously boggy inland area).
Once we got off the rock wall, Katie and I stopped to adjust our packs.
"Fuck!"
"What?"
"I can't find my bear spray," I said. Alas, it was nowhere to be found.
Right away, we found ourselves scrambling over, under, and around increasingly wet and slippery trees, rocks, and tangled roots taller than myself and thicker than my thighs. And somehow the rain continued to intensify as the hours wore on, turning the trail into a knee-deep muddy mess and completely soaking through our Gore-Tex shells and base layers.
Around 1:00p we sought refuge under a cliff overhang on a large-pebble beach and ate sandwiches. We had only gone three kilometers, putting our pace at a meager one (1!) KPH.
Reaching for optimism I looked up, "Katie, I think the sky is looking brighter." But the rain only came down harder. Every now and then we'd check in to monitor our potential for hypothermia. As long as we were moving, we seemed able to stave off the shivers and teeth chatters. An orange Coast Guard helicopter buzzed the coastline headed East.
The trail wove between slick beaches of soft sand, pea gravel, and large stones—all at a slant and all with their fair share of massive driftwood obstacles—and dense inland jungles, complete with slick, rudimentary ladders and ropes to assist with climbing and rappelling.
"I can't find the trail," Katie turned back toward me at one point. We split up and scoured the beach, searching for an orange marker. But we couldn't see anything. We even did a bit of bushwhacking, but nothing turned up.
"I'm getting colder," I said as we stood on some large driftwood trees, straining for a sign. Then we heard voices behind us. It was the mother and daughter who got off the boat with us! The daughter, Megan, removed her pack and began a search for the trail. "I found it!" she yelled and waved from the other end of the beach. We took a collective sigh of relief and decided to stay close.
The water on the trail rose and rose and rose, carrying inland debris down toward the ocean and beginning to wash out large swaths of beach. Where as in the beginning Katie and I would gingerly try to skirt around the mud to save our feet, we were now tearing straight through the dark water, not caring how deep or stable each step would ultimately be. Our pace picked up... slightly.
By mid afternoon, we were still kilometers from the closest campsite, which was promised to have bear caches to safely store food, a pit toilet, and wooden tent pads. We took another break before making the final push.
"It's less that 500 meters away," I called out to Katie while looking at my GPS.
We could see the collection of buoys that marked the campsite... but between us was a massive sprawling deluge of water rushing from the mountains into the ocean. What was normally a quaint seasonal creek was now a fast-moving thigh-deep river that ran right into the salty flooding ocean. Katie went first. Then I went, stabilizing myself with my hiking poles and facing upstream as to not get knocked sideways. If I were to fall, I'd be swept into the ocean.
We both made it.
That evening the rain finally stopped in time for us to set up the tent and we were rewarded with a glorious clear sunset, large driftwood to hang our wet clothes on, a sighting of three wolves, and an olympian for a campmate. Something about seeing the only olympian in history to win medals at both the summer and winter games suffer the same experience made it all feel more badass.
There were actually a couple other small groups camping with us that night.
"Tomorrow: zero percent chance of rain. Wednesday: zero percent chance of rain. Thursday: zero percent chance of rain..." I heard a man's voice yell out from another tent, and everyone within earshot erupted into cheers. He must have pulled a weather report from his Garmin, because we stopped having cell reception shortly after departing Port Hardy.
The next morning, the deep water on the trail ebbed and ultimately settled into a shoe-sucking mud that coated everything and caused a few tumbles. The velcro on the short gaiters I wore kept clogging with mud and riding up, becoming floppy anklets high on my ankles, doing more to trip me up than to keep rocks and mud from my feet.
But it wasn't raining, and we could finally do more to take in the beautiful coastal scenery. On one beach we saw a mama black bear and her two young cubs, who scampered up a nearby tree and watched as we passed on the beach below. At the next beach, we saw another black bear, bigger. It was eating something but also ran into the trees as we got nearer.
Then we came to a brand new obstacle: a (wo)man-powered cross-river cable car! It turns out, even masochists have fun :)
More beautiful scenery...
And a chance lunch encounter with our new trail friends...
And that night, another beautiful sunset.
On the third day, conditions continued to improve, and the route took us through some unexpected inland landscapes.
We ended the day at a beautiful soft white-sand beach where we camped next to our friends and decided to stay for two nights; taking a day to hike (sans our heavy packs) to the lighthouse at Cape Scott, about a 12 kilometer round trip hike.
With a beep, I caught an incoming message to my Garmin from my friend Saoirse, "They're lifting the coastal fire ban tomorrow mid-day." Woohoo! That meant we could start having campfires! That day we were all decidedly too tired, so we called it an early night and agreed to spark a fire after returning from Cape Scott.
That morning, a dense fog rolled in. But hey, I'll take fog over rain any day!!! I thought it was actually really cool!
The last day would be our longest yet: just over 17 kilometers to San Joseph Beach. It was a long day, for sure, but a good day, and holy smokes that beach was pure magic! It even included a secret "second" beach only accessible at low tide, used mostly my backpackers. There we met another group of four, who invited us to their campfire.
The fifth day was a quick 3 or so kilometers to the Cape Scott trailhead parking lot, where the water taxi company picked several of us up and shuttled us back to the marina in Port Hardy.
[Ronda, me (Caity), Katie, and Megan]
Woweeee what a week—and with some truly exceptional, remarkable women! I can't say I was delightful the whole time... I definitely struggled. But now, looking back at all the pictures and memories, it was absolutely worth it (Katie, you were RIGHT!)
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