19.05.2018
We headed to the Island to give it a go on the Juan de Fuca trail on the long weekend and had a great time. We couldn't have asked for better weather for the Pacific coast, with a mix of sun and clouds the whole weekend and no rain at all while we were on the trail. We had to work in Abbotsford on Firday and Tuesday, so only had 3 days to complete the trail. We slept in the car at the China Beach parking lot on Friday night, caught the WCT express to Port Renfrew on Saturday morning, and then did the trail in the North to South direction. Considering it was the long weekend, it wasn't as much of a gong show as we were expecting. Ran into quite a few people while hiking but nothing too out of control. The only somewhat annoying part was trying to find a spot at Sombrio Beach. We managed to grab a piece of beach beside an old guy and his grandkids, who let us join in their fire, which was much appreciated.
We did Port Renfrew to Sombrio on Day 1 (~23 km), Sombrio to Bear Beach on Day 2 (~18 km), and Bear Beach back to our car at China Beach on Day 3 (~9 km). In case anybody was curious, I thought I'd provide estimates for elevation gain for each section I thought of looking at it (Maybe this exists somewhere already): Port Renfrew to Payzant = 340 m, Payzant to Little Kuitshe = 210 m, Kuitshe to Sombrio = 250 m, Sombrio to Chin Beach = 530 m, Chin to Bear Beach = 670 m, Bear to China Beach = 450 m.
Trail was muddy in spots (as advertised) but not that terrible, and not as bad as we've experienced in other places. On a scale of 0 to Tricouni, it was about 0.5 Tricounis. Blowdown was pretty mild and easily passable when encountered. Wildlife we spotted included a family of sea otters (may be able to see in the one picture), a couple of mink and, of course, lots of seals. Lots of bear scat on the trail but, thankfully, we did not run into any. Wildflowers in bloom included paintbrush, columbine, dogwood and salal.
We were pretty bagged after each of the first two days, especially the Sombrio to Bear section, but glad we did it so we could complete the whole trail in the time we had. We are happy we did the whole trail, but probably wouldn't do the whole thing again. Overall, though, a great trip and our first hiking on the West coast of VI.
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