Juan de Fuca Marine Trail - June 2009

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In September of 2006, Kathy and I had completed our first true backpacking trip, 5 days on the Juan de Fuca Marine Trail. This is a 47 kilometer trail that skirts the west coast of Vancouver Island, beginning in Jordan River and ending in Port Renfrew. Our 2006 venture was very strenuous and felt like an amazing accomplishment.

This time we'd be going back knowing the trail, our limits, how to pack more effectively, and we'd be in much better shape.

For a full trip log of our 2006 journey, please check out my Juan de Fuca 2006 page.

On our first trip to the JDF trail, we were sporting about 40-45 pounds per pack. Mine may have even been more like 50 as I'd unwisely chosen to pack along two jackets, two pairs of shoes, and other unnecessaries. We had also only trained prior to the trip for maybe 3 weeks, and that was mostly done on only one day of the week. This time we'd be coming off of a winter of snowboarding, both of us in better shape though Kathy topping the fitness charts after having just lost over 30 pounds. We were hiking 2-3 times a week in preparation for the trip, and replaced most of our heavy gear. Our pack weights for this trip were to be around 25-30 pounds each.

We'd still be in for some surprises though!

Day 1 - Kelowna to China Beach Provincial Park

June 8/09 (Monday)

Our plan was similar to the 2006 trip, except we wouldn't have time for a stopover in Vancouver on the way. 6am saw us leaving Kelowna in the hopes of catching the 10am ferry in Tsawwassan. Heavy morning traffic through Langley and Surrey prevented that from happening, and we only just made it onto the 11am ferry. The upside was we were able to just drive right on, no waiting. 5 more minutes and we would have missed it, close call! Driving from Schwartz Bay, just north of Victoria, to Jordan River would prove uneventful this time. No getting lost near naval bases, at least. We arrived at our destination, the China Beach Provincial Park campground, just past 2pm.

The woods smell amazing here, all of the trees are very tall and are constantly swaying from the breeze coming off the ocean. It's a mix of ocean and pine, the dampness of the moss and ferns and a bit of travel dust coming off the road.

The weather forecast is supposed to be sun and clouds for the next week, so far it's been a perfectly clear day. We quickly found a spot with some sunshine, setup the tent and headed down to 1.5km trail to the beach. Glorious! Even for a late spring day on the ocean it was warm enough to dip our feet in the water and lay on the beach in our bathing suits.

A couple hours later we headed back to the campsite, dinner was calling! We'd purchased a new lightweight stove for this trip, the MSR Pocket Rocket, and I was anxious to try it out on an actual meal. We even had a new pot, cups, bowls and sporks having just bought the MSR Dualist set. MEC loves us and we love them. This stove is ridiculous, it heated our meal is no time, boiled water as fast as our kitchen stove at home would, and barely uses any fuel to do it. The only complaint is it's so susceptible to wind and looses some heat from that. Add a wind shield of some sort and it'd be amazing.

After dinner we hung out in the sun for a while, awaiting the campground attendant. Her name was Mary, she'd prove very helpful. We of course let her know we were doing the JDF trail tomorrow, she warned us that some vandals had wrecked a car in the parking lot at the trailhead. Wrenched open the door, stole everything inside and disabled the car just for kicks. My worst fear is having a dead, or missing, car at the end of a hike. Thankfully, Mary said if we wanted to pay a couple dollars more we could park our car in the campground visitors parking section. It's right beside the campground attendant compound, not visible from the road, and should be safer. That was a no brainer, for sure.

We turned in for the night early, probably no later than 8. We've been used to getting up early lately and would like to get on the trail as fast as possible tomorrow.

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