Hey Hikees!
For this weeks inquiry, I unfortunately didn’t have time to get out for a hike. So I will instead be writing a reflection on my multi-day trip, hiking the Juan De Fuca Trail in the summer of 2021. The Juan De Fuca Trail is located on the south-west portion of Vancouver Island, and extends roughly 47 kilometers. For the trek, we began just below Port San Juan, and finished at China Beach near Jordan River. This was a three day hike, so we packed our gear into large backpacks and camped at various sights along the trail. I completed the journey with my good friends Matteo and Liam.
Packing for a three day trek requires a good bit of gear. Between the three of us, we brought two tents, our own sleeping bags, and sleeping pads. We also brought enough food for three days, including breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks throughout the journey. For hydration, we brought a water pump and a LifeStraw for filtering various streams of water we came across. Although the water looked clear, and probably tasted fine, it’s always better to reduce our risk to various waterborne diseases. A few extra sets of clothes, various toiletries, some tools, and bags for packing out garbage and we were set.
The trail challenged all of us.
We split up the three day journey into sections, the first being roughly 20km. Followed by day two being about 19km, and the final day was a quick 8km. The most challenging of the three days was easily the second day, where we went through the most difficult section of the trail, conveniently while rain dumped the entire time we walked. This resulted in various slips and falls along the trail, and some not so happy, mud-covered hikers. The trail was a true fight of mental toughness, as we climbed up and down what seemed like never-ending hills along the coast. After a while, the 40 pound bag on my back began to feel it was pulling me towards the slippery slopes of mud. Although the journey was difficult, and pushed all of us to our limits, joy came with the challenge. It’s amazing when you begin to realize the things your capable of, and you never truly know what those things are until push yourself. This trail gave us an amazing adventure, and created so many important memories for myself, and I would love to do it again some day. I would highly recommend this trail for those with moderate-high skill when it comes to hiking, and it’s always important to pack for whatever situations may arise.
Here’s a short video I took on the trail, showing off the size of a massive, hollowed-out, tree trunk. Vancouver Island is home to some incredibly large trees, and if you’d like to see some more photos and information about them you can find it here. I believe the trunk in the video used to be a Red Creek Fir, but I cannot confirm this as I am no tree expert.