It’s like it’s trying to eat my shoes. I feel it sucking. It is definitely muddy. We were told there was a lot of mud, but what is a lot? Basically the whole flat part of the trail consisted of jumping from root to log to stone. It was hard to tell where the mud was deep and where it was walkable. You’d try a step and would hear the water before you’d feel it. There was really no avoiding getting dirty.
This was the start of the Lone Cone trail on Meares island. We, Joanne and Victoria joined me, found a local with a boat to take us across for 5 bucks. Great, because the official water taxis were charging 20! Lenny the boatman even took us the scenic way around another island. He told us about how he went looking for the missing person from the whale watching accident a few hours every day, even though that was now more than a week ago. From the Lone Cone jetty, it was a short walk to the start of the trail.
It was time to become a real Canadian. This was the bush! There was no way you could stay clean, so after slipping in the mud once, I just gave up altogether. As long as I would keep my shoes on. It was like we were in the military. It wasn’t just hiking, it was jumping, crawling, ducking and getting over, around and through obstacles. So naturally I became a real tree hugger. See, these are not the kind of trees you just step over when they are on your path. Getting over these giants means holding on and sliding over. Luckily they had a thick cover of moss which made it easier to slide. In other cases I hugged trees to swing myself around to avoid a big puddle of mud. Me Tarzan, you Jane?
I was on a playground and in boot camp. The trail got so steep that occasionally they made ropes to help you get off. Every time you thought it couldn’t get any steeper, it would. The mind is a powerful piece of equipment and somehow I tricked my legs into reaching the top. There was a little bit of flat trail and then heaven. In a small clearing you could look out over all the little islands and over Tofino. Behind it was the endless Pacific that turned into clouds.
It was a good 2 hour climb and I was drenched by the time I reached the top. The way down was only slightly faster. It was so muddy that you had to hold the trees and at times go down backwards or on hands and knees. My shoes were unrecognisable and my socks never got clean. My legs didn’t want to go one step further, but it was all worth it. It was an adventure till the end. It took us over an hour to find a boat that would take us home for a reasonable price. In the end the man at the campground office put us on the mail boat. Back at the hostel, the shower was just divine!
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