Some trail experiences feel easy, flow by. Others are humbling and quickly remind us how precarious things can be alone out in the wild. This trip was the latter…
Itinerary: 3 day, 2 night mission to a small island off the far West coast of Canada.
Goal: Explore a new area and see if we couldn’t find a remote wave or two to surf.
Weather wasn’t looking like it was going to cooperate, then the perfect two night window opened. So we frantically booked a few days off of work and got packing.
Day 1
Misty morning. We got dropped off at first street dock in Tofino by our neighbour Kevin. Then onto the water taxi for a ride to our island destination.
Islands and reefs slipped past. Green on green as the trees were reflected in the near shore waters.
A quick walk through a first nations village brought us to the trailhead. This community is a beautiful place and everyone we passed gave us a friendly wave.
The early bits of the trail are wonderfully varied—from white sandy beach, to sun-dappled old growth headlands, then back to another, somehow even more beautiful beach. And the cycle continues.
Ducking the fallen trees.
And staring up at the giants that still stand.
Over (rooty) hill.
And under (sunny) dale.
With an occassional rest for the ol’ hooves.
We continued our cycle of beach, headland, beach as gentle waves lapped the white sand shores. Until we turned a corner to the more exposed edge of the coast.
Got rather excited at the first sign of surf.
A quick low tide river crossing had us past the halfway point for the day. We were lucky with our timing as this place is often impassable, especially with the higher amplitude autumn tides.
To escape the rising tides it was another root-ridden muddy scramble up into the overgrown point.
We watched longingly from the headlands as turquoise lazy right-handers peeled around the point. Should have brought the longboard!
To be continued in Part 2.