Outdoor Video Magazine

Time: 6-8 hours (dependent on how much playing/investigating you do. It is a beach after all.
Length: 20km
Elevation: Sea-level
Map: None needed. Leaflets from local tourism.
Rating: 7/10

Stretching from Ucluelet to Tofino on Vancouver Island, Long Beach is the most accessible area of the Pacific Rim National Reserve. Long beach itself features a variety of sandy beaches, cobble beaches, rocky headlands and mudflats with sections of beautiful forest featuring sphagnum moss bog, sitka spruce fringe and cedar-hemlock rainforest. Often times Long Beach is swathed in an eerie sea-fret that clears and reforms in seconds mixing bright sunshine with zero visibility mist. It makes for quite the experience though. In terms of hiking, there are 9 marked trails in the Long Beach area, but we decided to have a nice long exploration of the whole beach and hiked one way from an access point at Combers Beach, down to Wickaninnish Headland, round Florencia Bay right down to Halfmoon Bay by Ucluelet. A total of around 20km. Mostly on sand and beaches but with some forest and headland sections at Wickaninnish. It was a pretty tiring way to see it, and was maybe a tad longer than it needed to be (especially when we arrived at the end at 7pm and still had to bike 25km back to the car into a strong head wind!).

It’s definitely worth hiking along Long Beach though, it’s very different from the terrain I’m used to.

So, moving on to Day 3 of the Juan de Fuca (the first part of this post can be found here).

Day 3 - 12km

A nice, easy day of just 12km from Chin Beach to Little Kuitsche Creek campsite. This was a really nice section of the hike, before you reach Sombrio Beach there is a stunning waterfall in a gorgeous little cove, and the trail hugs the shoreline for an extended period. Sombrio Beach itself is a lovely expansive sandy bay that does tend to be VERY busy because of the easy road access. There are some amazing campsites here, but we decided to bypass them because of the crowds. You can do a lot of shore-walking on this section of the hike.

Little Kuitshe Creek campsite is actually tucked away in the forest with some very small, dark, camping pads with no view and no sea access. So why camp there? So we didn’t! With a little bit of beta from some other hikers, we pushed on a few minutes further to Kuitshe Creek itself, where we left the trail and followed the rocky stream bed to a waterfall. An EASY scramble down the side of the waterfall, and you find yourself in Kuitshe Cove. A rock-wall enclosed gravel bay that feels gorgeously secluded. We pitched out tent right on the rocks and enjoyed an amazing evening of solitude in this little bay that looked totally cut off from anything but sea access.

Day 4 - 13km

The final day, Kuitshe Creek to Botanical Beach. The trail finishes with another easy leg, and again there is some nice shore walking to be had on rocky out-crops. An abundance of mussels, seals, and driftwood were to be found. We actually by-passed Botanical Beach because it was high tide. But I hear it is a spectacular place when the tide is down and the rockpools are exposed. We stood in the car park and started to hitchhike. Two of us with huge packs…and it took a little under 25mins for us to get picked up. Not bad huh?

We arrived back at our car to find that a mouse had somehow got trapped in it and had been nibbling food and gear for 4 days. Wonder if it was still alive? We never found it, but left the doors open for a long time so maybe it escaped…..

Time: 3-4 days
Length: 47km
Elevation: Sea-level. But elevation gain around 800m total?
Difficulty: Easy-Medium
Rating: 8/10 (and I’m a mountain lover!)
Map: You can manage with a basic map from any tourist information place that details distances to campsites and road access points. The trail is well marked and easy to follow (in the light!)

The Juan de Fuca is a popular hiking and backpacking trail along the South-Western coast of Vancouver Island. It’s Southern end is located at China Beach, a few km’s West of Jordan River and it finishes 47km further North at Botanical Beach near Port Renfrew. Featuring gorgeous forest, lovely beaches, some rugged coastline, pretty waterfalls and good hiking. Don’t expect wide expanses of sand, and warm, still, crystal blue waters for swimming in though! Although often touted as a wilderness hiking experience…anyone who has done a fair bit of hiking before will realise that the Juan de Fuca is NOT a wilderness experience. The trail covers easy terrain for the most part (the hardest section has some steep ups and downs: the 12km between Bear Beach and Chin Beach) with a bit of mud being your biggest worry (Ok a lot of mud if it’s the wrong time of year). There is also road access at a number of points along the way, so you often bump into toddlers and families along the way (not my idea of a wilderness experience!). Be prepared to meet a lot of people in the popular summer months. This said, it is still a fantastic hike, just not a very wild one.

Because the Juan de Fuca is not a circular hike, you either need two cars, a will to hitchhike (fairly easy), or you can take the shuttle bus that runs from May 1st to Sept. 31st. A pdf of the Juan de Fuca trail map can be found here. And an online version of Walking in British Columbia can be found here.

So I’ll describe how we did the Juan de Fuca, but obviously there are a tonne of options given the spacing of the campsites.

Day 1 - 2km

We started hiking around 8pm (it was August) from the China Beach parking lot, giving us very little light in the dark, dark forest. But that’s OK, we only had an easy 2km to the first campsite at Mystic Beach. But, in the fading light and with the not quite so well marked trail meandering through open trees, previous footprints were hard to find. We suddenly realised we probably weren’t on the trail. But we didn’t know when we’d last been on it either. So we carried on, figuring we knew the general direction we were supposed to be going and the ground was open and easy to cover. But this changed. Thick bushes appeared. And lots of rotting dead fall. And soon, the going was very tough but we’d gone too far to backtrack. We decided to cut to the coast and follow the sea to the campsite. It wasn’t far. But it got worse, and worse. I’ve done some bushwacking before, but this was different. We were progressing at around 500m an hour. The bushes were about 2m high, and the only way to get through was to kind of roll on top of them so you were kinda suspended a metre or so off the ground. When you weren’t doing this you were climbing over, under, along and round huge fallen trees. At one stage a put my foot through such a tree and went up to my thigh in rotting wood. It started getting very dark. We started getting very, very tired and worried. Eventually we came out to the sea, only to find our cunning plan foiled by a 50ft cliff and a waterfall. The beach lurking invitingly below, totally inaccessible. It was a nice moment nonetheless, a tiny rocky ledge, over looking a full moon rising above the Pacific Ocean, a stream of water cascading over the edge. Inpenetrable bush all around us. Just as our hopes were failing, we saw the light of a fire in the distance along the beach…the campsite! With renewed fervour we went back into the bushes, trying to stick close to the edge. Soon it became apparent we were TOO close to the cliff edge, and we were now traversing virtually vertical terrain hanging on bushes and trees. Not good. So we cut inland again. Another 30mins or so of this, and we came back out to the beach, descending the near vertical terrain through thick, thick bushes. The bushes stopped, and revealed the beach below beneath another vertical cliff. But it was impossible to determine how far down it was. It was too dark. I couldn’t get my flashlight out, I was hanging on a tree in a precarious position. I guessed the sand was somewhere between 10feet and 30feet below me. Climbing back up would have been virtually impossible, whereas just dropping to the sand would put us on the beach and within easy walking of the campsite! I elected to drop. It turned out to be around an 18 feet drop. A fair way with a 25kg backpack in the dark. Jane then followed down behind me. We’d made it! We could see the fires further along the beach. Home. Although we did still have the erie experience of nearly walking straight into a huge rotting sea-lion carcass that was on the beach. A good bear attractant I imagine. The easy 2km hike had taken us 3 1/2 hours, and I was more physically exhausted than from any other hike I’ve ever done. Camping at Mystic is on the beach.

Day 2 - 19km

Frm Mystic Beach it is an easy 7km to Bear Beach winding through beautiful trees over bridges and down staircases carved from trees (they’re pretty cool!). It was a relief to be on a trail again. At Bear Beach there is another campsite, but we just elected to have some lunch and press on to the next (smaller) campsite at Chin Beach. The 12km from Bear Beach to Chin Beach were tough, especially considering the bushwacking the day before and the 7km we had done already. There are some gruelling climbs (one particular 135m one) and steep descents for the whole 12km. It’s very energy sapping, but still through some nice forest. When you finally arrive at an emergency shelter in the trees you know it’s all downhill and you’re nearly there.

Chin Beach has a number of camping places nestled in the trees right on the beach side, but sheltered from the wind. It’s a gorgeous spot. Water is available from a small, waterfall at the South end. Camping spots are kind of limited though.

We enjoyed some reading in the evening sun, had a hearty meal and then enjoyed a gorgeous sunset over the Pacific.

Check out part II of the Juan de Fuca trail report for the rest.

I was sat at a climbing wall the other day reading a magazine. It featured an article on ‘Hard Grit’, a term that has come to mean crazy, difficult climbing on gritstone in the English pennines. With very poor protection. A good example of just how poor the protection is is
given by a route where the last piece of protection is less than halfway up. If the climber falls near the top, the selfless belayer must jump from the ledge they are on in the hope they can take up enough slack to prevent a ground fall. Nice. Unfortunately I can’t find out the name of this route….you’ll have to trust me though.

The term “Hard Grit” was pioneered by the DVD of the same name that first made it big in 1998. Below are some clips of the DVD from youtube, including a trailer.

First off we have Seb Grieve on his first attempt on ‘Parthian Shot‘, a ’safe’ but sustained E9 6c. The final protection is 3 RP’s placed behind a dodgy flake. No-one ever thought these would really hold a fall, but Seb decided to put to a test in this video. He’s the first person to fall on them. He also did it another 5 times that day. They held.

Gaia, E8 6c. This route was made famous by a falling Jean Mihn Trin-Thieu who I believe broke his leg. You can see this (in low, crappy qquality)) below. The video quality gets better as it goes on though, so persevere!

The Bad and the Beautiful, E7 6B:

Here’s another one detailing a whole bunch of ‘Hard Grit’ routes, and also giving you highlights from a LOT of climbing. There is another big fall of Gaia at 6mins 43secs.

Elder Statesman, E8 7b. This climb has one particularly funky move in. Good vid. (but the guys voice kinda annoys me!).

Length: 26.6km Elevation: 1400m - 2480m (2700m+ if you scramble peaks)
Time: 3 Days
Effort: Medium (some long uphill).
Rating: 7.5/10

26.6km over 3 days?! Well that’s what the book told me. “If you are strong and very, very fast this hike can be done in two days”. Hmmmm. I would say if you were strong and very, very fast you could do this in ONE day. Two days is relaxing. Three days is extreme. I read a whole brand new boook from cover to cover, did three separate sidetrips scrambling up 3 mountains, wasted tonnes of time stalking marmots and goats. Invented games with stones. Etc. Lets just say I had some time to kill. And I still only took 2 1/2 days.

So Canada Day 2007 has come and gone, but my post for the long weekend is 2 months behind schedule.

Originally I was planning to go rock climbing in a place near Golden, B.C. for 3 days with a bunch of friends. But my poor, poor fingers were over-tired from too much indoor climbing and I fancied having some time alone. So I got them to drop me off along the David Thompson (Highway 11) on their way to Golden. They would (hopefully) return in 3 days to pick me up.

I got dropped off at the trailhead at 10pm in the pouring rain and decided to camp right there, which was right next to a garbage damp (fenced at least). Smart huh? Anyhoo, no bears turned up, but the banging of the huge metal door drove me nuts and I started hiking at 5am the next morning because I couldn’t sleep.

The first 8km of trail are kind of boring as they pass through wooded terrain on a seismic-line/quad trail. The result was that I found myself halfway though the hike and at my campsite in a secluded alpine meadow by 10am. This is a gorgeous area once you escape the trees and you enter a lovely alpine bowl at around 2400m. I passed the next few days on my own reading in the sun (wrapped in a -10C sleeping bag in the sun!), scrambling the three surrounding 2700m peaks, and watching my marmot and squirrely friends at play.

The best peak to scramble is Littlehorn it’s self, the one directly across from you as you crest the first pass. From the second pass, amble up steep grassy slopes to your right until you attain the ridge and then it’s easy scrambling (hands in pockets style) to the top. From here you can actually continue into a ridge walk, descending steep talus on the far side following the ridge over another couple of humps until you carefully pick your way down steep grassy slopes at the far end.

The photo shows the trail in green…the scrambling route I took in red, and two optional descents in yellow. The route I took down was not ideal, ending at cliffs in two different places and involving some backtracking up steep slopes to find a way off. The yellow routes LOOKED bettter, but no guarantees!The other two peaks I ascended (OK, one I didn’t make it to the true top) were the ones either side of the first pass. As you approach the pass from the start of the hike, the summit to the left is inaccessible except to CRAZY scramblers. You can ascend the steep, loose scree slope to the ridge easily enough, and you are treated with nice views off the the precipitous farside, but to travel to the true summit would involve some crazy exposure and difficult climbing. The summit on the right of the pass is somewhat easier to obtain up slightly less steep scree along the ridge edge.

All was perfect except for the two nights. I only had the fly of tent, not the inner. So when a scratching woke me up in the middle of the first night, I found my nose inches from the face of an inquisitive ground squirrel. He ran away. Then came back REPEATEDLY all damn night to nibble on my stuff. I even resorted to (gently) swatting him (sorry animal lovers) to scare him off. He was unperturbed. I zipped my sleeping bag up fully, scared he was going to run inside and cause havoc (can you imagine a toothy, excited, nut-loving squirrel loose in a tight fitting mummy bag? yikes)

I woke up the next morning, to find he had run away with one of my gloves. Leaving me with a freezing left-hand in extremely windy sub-zero conditions. I hope he made good use of it. To cap the night off, i found the squirrely b******s had also got into my food, which I’d hung of the highest boulder I could find.

The next night was not much better, with Mr Glove Lover returning (presumably for the right-hand) at regular intervals. The highlight though was when I woke up at 8am to find a MARMOT sat nibbling grass within my tent, 5 inches from my face. I was very amused and watched him for a few minutes, until he turned his attention to my sleeping bag, then he got the boot from my tent too (not literally).

Other highlights were watching the marmots ‘box’ over territory, seeing the TINIEST baby mountain goats, and waiting 7 hours for my friends to pick me up after the hike. Wait…that wasn’t a highlight. Thanks guys!

Time: 5-7 hours (just hiking time from book) - 11 hours total for us!
Elevation Gain: 1500m
Highest Point: 2580m
Difficulty: Moderate
Scariness: 1/3
Map: Not really needed
Book: Scrambles in the Canadian Rockies - Alan Kane
Trailhead: Morro Slabs. just East of the bridge over the Athabasca River on Highway 16, a few kilometers East of Snaring River campground.

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This is a LONG day’s scramble with considerable vertical gain and NO water along the way. The terrain is variable and interesting, the views good, and I would definitely recommend it if you’re feeling up to the distance.

Starting of on the obvious Overlander trail (which allows mountain bikes) the hike initially contours the side of the mountain sticking fairly flat for around 35-50mins. Keep an eye out for the first drainage you cross (a dry stoney creek bed probably) and this is where you turn left off the obvious trail and find a fairly well beaten track that will take you up the mountain proper. Starting through brush and then eventually a large burned area, the trail quickly steepens and will never really let off until the summit now. You follow the edge of a cool canyon for some of the way, and apparently there is a waterfall if you follow it all the way to end. When you’re up above the first small cliff band, hang right and follow the base of crags along to the ridge above the next drainage area. From here it’s essential to pick up the fairly obvious and well trodden trail again (marked with cairns and pink/orange flagging tape) and follow it up to the start of the scrambling.

Here is the ‘crux’ according to Alan Kane, but I have to say the ‘5m chimmney” is not really is difficult as it sounds. With little/no exposure and some good holds it won’t cause any problems. If it does it can easily be by-passed via an easy line to the right where there was even some webbing for hand-support when I was there.

From here an obvious trail leads up to the right, following a fairly steep drop on your righthand side. This bit sketched me out a bit, especially coming down. The trail was dry and loose with dirt and some rock, and a slip could have been far from amusing. Don’t let me fool you though, this part was still easy (I’m just a wuss!). You could take a more rocky route than this in parts if you fancied scrambling some more.

Topping out above the rock, you’re back in spruce again (by a cairn with some big horn horns). The trail now follows the ridge crest through the trees and is well marked with ornage flagging tape the whole way. As you approach the tree-line there are some fun places for some slab-bouldering (see video).

From here to the summit is an enjoyable slog up talus, across scree and up some easy rock scrambling (you can usually find a trail if you prefer, ot a harder rock-line if you want!). Don’t be fooled by thinkign your near the top until you are looking down in every direction…Hawk has on of the worst most consistent false summits I’ve seen!

From the top there are great views of the surrounding mountains including Mt Robson, Pyramid, Edith Cavell, and some other HUGE ones further away that I didn’t recognise. lol. Check out the crazy coloured pounds the far side of Highway 16 too. We saw a bear sat on the train tracks from this vantage point too, and the resulting bear jam. Put a quick note in the summit register, feel free to add a plug for outdoorvm.com haha, and begin your descent the way you came.

By this stage we were all pretty short of water, it being around 30C out. I had gone through 3 litres already. 3 of the 4 of us dosed up on Ibuprofren to ready our aging knees for the descent (yes, I’m only 24).

Once you get back to the canyon, there is an optional detour if you find a safe descent into it and want a bit of fun. We all LOVED this part of the descent. We followed the canyon bottom the WHOLE way back to the Overlander trail. There are numerous small (up to 4m) would-be waterfalls (it was all dry) that make great fun to downclimb. Some involved walking down trees, some had to be jumped, some downclimbed in VERY interesting fashion by certain members of the group. See video! This whole part provided great comic relief to a tired and sore group of people.

Back on the Overlander, it’s nearly over with just a quick, fast, flat march back to the car. Interestingly enough I predicted 11 hours for our trip before we set off. We were back a few seconds under 11 hours 1 minute. Pretty good eh?

Another good route description is given by dowclimbing.com along with some good photos, but not a patch on mine of course