)
)
)
One thing that I was looking for when researching the trip was the finer points, i.e.: what sort of parking will there be at the trailhead, should we expect toilet paper in outhouses, will there be outhouses? How about bear caches, should we hang our food, etc. So hopefully this guide will help those who may have the same burning questions!
To view all of the pictures from the trip by themselves, click here
Update: A triplog from Mike and Kathy's 2009 Juan de Fuca Trail adventure is now available by clicking here!
<<Previous Day <<Home>> Next Day>>
September 7/06 (Thursday)
After raisin bran at Dirk's house in Vancouver, we said goodbye to Rheana, Dirk had left for work already. We found the ferry thanks to Mapquest, though I was fairly certain we'd get lost somewhere between New Westminster and the terminal so that was a pleasant surprise to arrive in Tsawwassen and almost immediately get loaded onto the ferry to Schwartz Bay. Going between Galliano (?) Island and another island to get to Victoria is beautiful. We saw seals or otters or something and even shared a Legendary burger on board (thank you, Whitespot).
Getting from Schwartz Bay to Sooke however was a lesson in trail and
error. My directions (again, from Mapquest) had shown us the shortest possible
route basically, and this threw in a bunch of turns onto side streets off of the
main highway that I either neglected to write down, or missed entirely. Long
story short, instead of just staying on the highway all the way through, we
turned off somewhere, wound up in Esquimalt and when we decided "yeah, we're
going totally the wrong way", the place we actually turned around in wound up
being the entrance to the Esquimalt naval base...complete with a guard armed
with a very large automatic rifle. Thankfully they could see we were lost
tourists and allowed us to turn around without incident. :-)
)
)
We arrived at China Beach at 3pm and promptly walked down to the beach, which
was glorious. A sort of homecoming for Kathy. We spent two hours exploring the
waters edge, the waves were awesome! Setting up the tent was painful though as
the ground had maybe an inch of loose dirt on top, below which was what we could
only guess to be cement or incredibly compact earth. Staking out the tent was
simply not going to happen, though we managed to sink a few pegs without bending
them too much. We used heavy stones to hold the rest of the tent in place. FYI
for staying here, bring a hammer and some good pegs, or prepare to stake it like
we did with rocks!
)
)
)
)
Our plan from the beginning was to setup at our site here, then nip into
Jordan River quickly and experience some of their small town charm, and get some
grub from a local restaurant of some sort. When we had driven through on our way
in there was a small restaurant open, however that was all we could see, short
of a corner store that was really nothing more than a shed. But hey, no worries,
there was that one restaurant...yeah, no, it closed before we got there at 6pm.
Go figure! Thankfully the owner was out front, so I asked if there was anywhere
else to get some food. She said short of driving back to Sooke (30km south),
we'd be out of luck unless the "take out place two doors down is still open".
Rushing 2 doors down, sure enough there it was, built onto the side of a house.
So we settled on BLT sandwiches and fries, served by a lady with black
fingernails. The sandwiches were good though, and a cat kept us company in hopes
of a table scrap.
Back to the campsite by 6:30 or so, it was starting to get dim and the
air was getting chilly indeed. We had expected cooler temperatures than Kelowna
for sure, but this was getting actually cold, we could see our breath! In our
rush to move, pack and get out of town we had forgotten our "big plan" of
bringing one full set of really cold weather clothing and one set of moderately
cool weather clothing. We were going to make the choice on what to pack for the
trail at the trailhead...however all we had brought was our moderately cool
gear. So we put everything on that we could and planned on going to bed once the
parks person had come by to pickup our fee for the night.
Naturally this took forever...we had seen him driving around before we
left to get our food, but he took too long and we were hungry, so left before he
got to our site. He didn't return until around 8, by which time we were freezing
and had decided to just forget paying him for the night, we'd go to bed and
square up in the morning somehow. Sure enough our last trip to the bathroom,
there he was. "I just need to go check on the overnight parking area, I'll come
by your site in about 30 minutes to brief you on the trail and take payment for
tonight". Sigh...another 30 minute wait, that ended up turning into 45
minutes...forget it, we sat in the car where it was warmer.
It was strange, after talking to small-town folk and having them respond
to me as a "big city tourist", being unable to stake our tent out and now
huddling for warmth in the car, I felt like we were representing our true selves
very poorly so far. We've been through hardships while camping, freezing
temperatures, unexpected snow storms, leaky tents...I swear it, we are tough!
Tim, the parks guy, finally shows up and we chat a bit about the trail
ahead, he isn't sure we know what we're doing and asks if we actually want to
hike the Juan de Fuca trail, or if we meant to hike the West Coast Trail. We
assure him we're in the right place, we've read a lot of trip reports, it's all
good. Says there was a nuisance bear somewhere on the trail but that it was
removed and we should have no wildlife problems. I had asked all my burning
questions regarding the safety of our vehicle, he assured us that part of his
job is to monitor the overnight parking area. Relieved, we hopped into the tent,
wrote our diary entry for the day and
went to sleep a little after 9pm. The account for today may sound a bit
depressing, but we are in good spirits, we start our hike tomorrow and the
weather is looking great!
<<Previous Day <<Home>> Next Day>>