Let me begin by saying that I agree with you all, and yes we did it anyway ; )
It all started as few months ago when I was chatting with a mate of mine name Josh, MJW to some. With the news of my moving north of Victoria but still on the island to a city(village) called Courtenay, we did some brain storming to come up with something completely awesome and out of this world to accomplish....we agreed on the one thing that both of our perspective partners told us we were absolutely crazy to do and in a way that kinda made them cross with us, only because they love us so much, well that's what we like to think anyway. What was this idea? You may be asking, it was to hike the Juan de Fuca trail...in a day, that's right all 47km in one glorious, fantastic, foot demolishing, knee crushing, soul draining day. Hahaha I think of it and it make me laugh that we had such a crazy plan and that it worked!!! Hahaha so fun : D
To give some preface, we were thinking of doing it back in Januaryish time frame when we both had a bit more free time to drive up on a whim and pound out as much as we could. At the time we thought it would be fine, but probably because sub-consciously if we waited we would come to our scenes and not do it all. Trying to complete it then, on a whim, during days that don't have as much sunlight and WAY more rain wasn't the smartest of ideas so we looked at a more workable date...ie the day with the most sunlight and hopefully least amount of rain. This led us to decide on June 23rd and with one more like minded, ie crazy, fellow in tow we met up at the ungodly hour of 0345 in the effing morning to be at the trail head for 0500 and hammer out this trail.
The reason why you have read this far! The Juan de Fuca trail. We started on the south end of the trail, Mystic beach, why here? you may ask.
Pro - It was the closer trail head so we didn't have to wake up even earlier to be on it by sunrise.
Con - The majority of the harder trail was in the southern end : (
Pro - The majority of the harder trail was in the southern end AND we didn't have to make up earlier!!!!!
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| Soaker #1 |
So mystic beach won! Hah. The trail it's self was very nice, the beaches were clean, trails were well marked and taken care of but understandably rugged, however the drainage, it could use some work but that isn't the fault of BC Parks only mother nature ; ) After the first little while more and more puddles of mud were appearing and getting larger too!! Soon enough Jason got a soaker then Josh! And yes even eventually yours truly got some mud in my boots!, a wee footnote to those not in the know; as "soaker" is when water/mud/slush enters your boot and well soaks your foot, not very pleasant for the receiver but absolutely hilarious for those around to see hehe, In all good fun we shook it off as all apart of getting your trail badges as it were and carried on, lets face it if you go through a hike of any decent length and don't get a bug bite, minor scratch, or the beloved soaker, maybe more adventuresome trails should be looked at. 7ish hours and 20km into our hike and we got to our first stop of the day, in the emergency shelter at the boundary for Chin and East Sombrio beach we had a quick change of socks and some food that pretty much consisted of Cliff bars, landjagers, and electrolyte supplements a lunch that any mother would be proud of. Sitting there on the landing changing my socks and shoveling food down my throat there was a part of me that wanted to stay, have a solid rest and enjoy the fact that we were 20km into the wilderness with no reception and no civilization; but very quickly I had realized that this was beginning to be more that just a hike, it had become a monster that we had to tame. With little rest and protein rich food in our hands we pressed on and into Sombrio Beach, here is where we met most of our fellow hiking kind although they were on a more leisurely pace plus their sanity was a titch higher than ours too, we were grasping the magnitude of our challenge by the looks we were receiving, it did make me laugh some and still does hehe.
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| Soaker #2 |
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| Soaker #3 |
Moving along through Sombrio beach and nailing down the kilometers the distance is starting to take its toll, with feet getting sore, water and food running low and most serious of all a recurring knee injury on one of the fellows was as bad as it has ever been, at one point 1km took us 45min to complete, sadly we had already passed the last bail out trail by a few km's. Pressing on we weren't counting up the km markers any more we were counting down the ones we had left, taking breaks when necessary and cracking jokes too, gotta admit even with all the tension in those last few kilometers we can still joke about who would be bear meat if one showed up. The majority of the day I had thought for sure that we would crack on and get this challenge under our belts in 10-12 hours totally enough time to go to the pub and wait for our ride there! such was not the case, with the adversity of mother nature, minor lack of hydration, and injuries this little walk took us just over 15hrs 30min. I'm sure that there are people out there that may have done it faster and with less problems, that is great I applaud them. The point of an expedition like this is that you don't know what will really happen out there, talking and planning till you are blue in the face will only help you so far, eventually you need to get out there and do it.
I am glad I did it, I'm glad I did it with two of my best friends, and when people ask me if I would do it again? I can't say yes and I can't say no...all I can think of is comparing it to Christmas or Thanksgiving, you have a great time laughing, eating, playing games and by the end of it you are so ruined that you say to yourself, "self never again!", some years you pay attention and feel perfect at the end of it, other times you throw caution to the wind and giver pig!
Cheers to my trail mates, cheers to you for reading and cheers to those who giver pig!
If you would like to see the rest of the pictures from the trail please follow the link to my facebook page,
https://www.facebook.com/jonny.parker.73/media_set?set=a.10152914095540577.1073741826.663300576&type=3
Pro - It was the closer trail head so we didn't have to wake up even earlier to be on it by sunrise.
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