Life's a Stitch

Don't know what got into us. Four of us, three aged 60 more or less, came to the decision to hike the Juan de Fuca Marine Trail on the west coast of Vancouver Island. You may have heard of the West Coast Trail, the well known BC extreme trek. Well this is the geographical continuation of the West Coast, the end of one located 200 meters from the beginning of the other. 

The original plan was to do the first three days of the West Coast  southbound and pay the $50 fee to be boated out at the half way point. That option was recently discontinued and seven days wasn't going to work, so Bob's your uncle, as they say in Canada.  A three day hike sounds so simple on paper, but this is no walk in the woods, involving scrambling, ankle sucking mud pools, leg twisting roots, slippery log bridges, bears and signs that warn you of the threat of cougars and rogue waves. 

Arriving in Victoria the night before, I obsessed rather than slept, thoughts  bubbling around my brain: will the bear lockers be full, will our tents hold up, worry about Dave and Jeff who have already been on the most rigorous section of the trail for two days, still have stuff on the to do list – ice, gas, Subway sandwiches for our first lunch…Tried to calm my mind by painting an imaginary watercolour but there was too much detail. New respect for long distance hikers and the amount of preparation required or do they go in with a certain amount of clueless denial? I think that could be it. Like childbirth preparation, no matter how much you know, nothing can adequately prepare you for the reality of the actual event. For heaven's sake, go to sleep, it's only three days.

This will be continued in segments, one every few days.