West Coast Trail

Wow it’s 2022 and it’s been 15 years since I hiked the trail!  It’s my plan to get out there again soon, not quite sure when…

In July 2007 I set out to hike the world-famous West Coast Trail on the west coast trail of Vancouver Island in British Columbia Canada. Lucky me to have a trail like this not far from where I live. (And by the way I absolutely love living here on the west coast of BC!). My oldest son Chris joined me on this great adventure and proved to be a worthy hiking companion, as he has in the past.

I did complete the hike successfully!  No mishaps, falls our injuries except one lost hiking pole and 1 broken pole.  While it was a lot of work it was not as difficult as we expected… Of course we didn’t set any speed records and had great weather. I do have great respect for those who have done the trail in 3-4 days and/or had never-ending rainfall.

We had some pretty long days out on the trail, so I didn’t have as much time to photograph as we would have camping in the RV. But there’s still a lot of photos!

The gallery on this page is days 1 through 3 (to keep the page size reasonable).

To see days 4 – 7 go here: Days 4 – 7 West Coast Trail.

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Gordon River Ferry. The starting point of our hike! Not exactly what we expected... but it's all good. Port Renfrew, BC.

Gordon River Ferry #2. For these hikers, their journey has completed... for ours it is just beginning!

Gordon River Ferry #3. Good bye Ferry. Load up our packs and let's go.

West Coast Trail signage. Good news! Looks like we've found the right trail. And of course we need to take a picture of our starting point!

Our first ladder! We heard lots about ladders before starting this hike. So when we reached our first ladder our cameras were quick to come out. It turns out the ladders are far better than expected!

WCT ladders! OK now the ladders start to get a little more interesting...

WCT ladders. It's a long ways down.

A nasty section of trail. OK now you call this a trail? Woohoo let's go!

The donkey engine. OK now everybody takes a picture of this for some reason... so I can't be left out, even though it was not that interesting to me at least.

Ladders down to Thrasher. The ladders down to trasher are particularly challenging... because there are so many of them. For those who have to climb them the next morning, I feel their pain - but we are taking the beach route tomorrow morning. Of course, we have a treat waiting for us (the boulders!)

The campsite at Thrasher Cove. Now should I put my tent below or above the logs? (There is a lot more room below them!)

The campsite at Thrasher Cove #2. It's pretty full. And later a group that came all the way from Walbran creek camped beside those buckets. Overnight the waves came up and licked at the logs in front of the tents. (We didn't set up below the logs)

Soon after I got up at Thrasher I just had to take this 6:15am picture just to prove I was actually awake at that time. We did make it around Owen point that morning before the tide got too high. We left Thrasher around 7:30am and got to the point at 9am.

Trail to Owen Point #1. You like rocks? There's a lot of big ones here... and this is the trail by the way. We've got to go over/around these rocks with our backpacks on.

Trail to Owen Point #2. More rocks along the way to Owen Point

Trail to Owen Point #3. The tide is getting higher - but we're gonna make it!

Waterfall just before Owen Point. We're on a tide deadline so we were unable to take the time to set up our tripods and take a great image of these waterfalls, so this snapshot will have to do.

Owen Point #1. We did make it to Owen Point before the tide got too high, woohoo. If we didn't we'd have to go back to Thrasher and take the forest route.

Owen Point #2. Chris is taking photos of the caves at Owen Point

Owen Point Caves. It wasn't until I looked at this photo after I got home that I realized you could walk through Owen Point via these caves! What was I doing???

One of the many surge channels along the beach route after Owen Point

Another Surge channel. No, I'm not jumping this one... there's a trail visible around the top end of it.

Surge channel crossing. This is the way to cross a surge channel - if you are brave and foolish (Of course I have already crossed this log before taking this photo)

Surge channel crossing. Of course there is the showing off too.

Here's comes another surge channel just past Owen Point.

Surge channel crossing. Here's another way to cross a surge channel. Just don't do it while a sneaker wave is coming in!

Enjoying the scenery. Hiker taking a moment to enjoy the scenery along the sandstone shelf.

Surge channel (not crossing!) . We decided not to try and cross this one. Apparently you can cross it by jumping on that rock in the middle. If the rock looks slippery to you, join the club. We decided to take the forest route from here.

Surge channel (not crossed). Another view of the surge channel we did not cross

Welcome to the forest route! Chris is carefully crossing the mud in the forest trail.

Winter 2006/2007 storm damage. One of the large trees that fell across the trail last winter.

Ladders down to Campers Beach

A close call for this ladder

Cable car ride at Campers. Chris riding the cable car across Campers Creek. It's our first cable car crossing ever! OK, so its not quite as exciting as we always hoped.

Cable car dock at Campers Creek.

Campers Creek

Campers Creek #2

Surge channel just past Campers Creek. We deemed this Surge channel impassable. So, it will be the forest route tomorrow when we leave Campers Beach.

Patterns in the sandstone. We saw these cool rounded shapes everywhere along the sandstone shelves.

Rocks reflected in pool. Now that I'm back home I wish I had taken more time to take more images of these beautiful reflections.

Rocks reflected in pool #2

View of Beach facing north along Campers Creek.

Campers Creek. Campers Creek as it flows along the edge of the bluff just before it flows into the ocean.

A VERY slippery piece of trail! Not long after leaving Campers we reached this log, which was tipped to the side enough to make it very easy to slide off.

Log crossing. Another one of those crazy log bridges in the forest not far past Campers Creek

Mud on the trail. A typical muddy section of the forest trail

Log crossing. Another log crossing on the trail from Campers to Walbran.

Ocean view #1. A refreshing view of the ocean from along the forest trail (Campers to Walbran)

Ocean view #2

Muddy boots. This is a bad as it got for us... I know some of you were in mud over the top of your boots, but we were careful - maybe we were a little (or a lot) lucky too! The weather was great for us.

The ladders are back! More ladders just before Sandstone creek.

Sandstone creek

Sandstone creek. There were some nice waterfalls here too but the sun & shade combination was too much... also it would have been dangerous for us to get to. So, they will have to remain in our memories.

Cullite Creek Ladders. I think this was the biggest and baddest section of ladders on the whole trail. And this particular ladders seemed to be one of the steepest and longest. I was sure glad when I got off the bottom of this one safely!

Cullite Creek cable car

The bog trail. A sunny day on the bog section of trail between Campers & Logan Creek.

Logan Creek bridge. Chris crossing the newly rebuilt Logan Creek suspension bridge (the winter storms of 2006/2007 took it out).

Logan Creek bridge #2. What awaits you at the north end of the suspension bridge!

Beach at Walbran Creek. A welcome site as we arrive at our next campsite, the beach at Walbran Creek.

Beach patterns & rocks at Walbran. The late afternoon/evening sun always brings out these wonderful textures & shapes all over the beach.

Footprints in the Sand. The only thing we left behind on the trail...

Sunset at Walbran. The end of another great day! (that's day 3). This is the last slide in this gallery, don't miss days 4-7 in a separate gallery...

Don’t miss the rest of the photos! Days 4 – 7 West Coast Trail.