Day Seven Highlights

The trailhead at Gordon River. Here, I am probably in the best shape of my life.


Kilometre 75.... We had reached the end. All that remained now was a boat ride across the Gordon River.... And a night of uncomfortable camping on a reserve.... And a shower in Port Renfrew, five kilometres away... And an encounter with a black bear while walking around Port Renfrew.... And supper with friends we met on the trail at the Lighthouse Pub.... And a bus ride through hell the next day as we returned to my car at the other trailhead... And meeting the authors of the most popular guidebook, Blisters and Bliss, who happened to be taking the bus the same day to begin the trek at the north end, where we had ventured out a week before....


Near the highest point of the trail is this donkey engine. In days of old, this huge piece of machinery was somehow brought up here and used to winch a cable to logs in the process of hauling them down to the bay.




The climb up from Thrasher Cove was a brutal one, all the way up to the highest point on the trail. Essentially, two kilometres of steady climbing.






"Last day on the WCT and I'm not in a rush." We never were.... Well, maybe Bryan usually tried to be in the morning, but Daron and I always held him up... And this morning even he wasn't in a rush. It was a beautiful, relaxing start to our last day on the trail, and we had the beach to ourselves.... Um... Well, mostly.... Except for the naked German couple on the far end of the beach... by the drinking water.....


This is the campsite of the four Germans where we hung out around their campfire the night before and watched the high tide come in while eating bannock, raspberry jam, Nutella and dark chocolate, and passing around a bottle of re-imported Canadian whisky which one of the German men had purchased in Canada during a visit here a few years ago. He brought it back in a Pepsi bottle in his suitcase to drink on the WCT. At high tide, the waves were literally licking at our feet as they came over the protective log on the right side of the photo to where the campfire was.


A big highlight at Thrasher Cove was simply that our tent didn't get swamped by the sea. In this picture, it is visible how high the tide came during the night. Actually, we stayed up until the high tide at 10:30 p.m. the night before, so we knew we were safe. Some folks on the other end of the beach weren't so lucky, as they had waves lapping at the edge of their tent come high tide.