Day#1
My girlfriend drove to my house in Victoria from Campbell River and we loaded up our two separate vehicles. I loaded up my dog Mr Sparks for the very first time. I had just adopted him the week previous and this was going to be a thorough test of our new friendship. We then headed towards Sooke, all the way past Jordan River to the Juan de Fuca marine trail. Before we started hiking we drove to drop off a vehicle at the north/west end of the trail so that we would have a way of getting home. By the time we arrived back at the China Beach trailhead and started hiking it was just after 1100.
The first bit of this trail starts out rather easy. It is not very steep and there is minimal mud. We arrived at Mystic Beach, or the 2km mark, after walking down some twisty switchbacks that ended with a giant log stair case down to the beach. There is a picture of this displayed above. The beach itself is very pretty and had quite a few people camped along it. We arrived here around 1145.
At about 1400 we arrived at the east end of Bear Beach, which is 9kms in. As we were walking down the beach Darryl and I realized that the dog was no longer following... So we looked back and called his name. After a few minutes he came barrelling down the beach towards us covered in blood! I was alarmed and thought he must have been attacked or fallen when I was not paying attention! However, the closer he got the more I could smell the strong stench of old dead animal... He had been rolling in a dead sea creature... And we were going to have to share a tent with him...
We continued on and camped at the west end of the beach by a neat rock that sticks out of the ocean. We set up in the woods behind some big logs and I eventually dug through my bag to find some dish soap and gave my new skunk of a dog a bath...
That afternoon we noticed some teenagers arrive at the beach in flip flops and carrying beer... I was a bit stumped as to how this was possible. Eventually I came to the conclusion that they must have found a trail straight from the highway, which is never more than a few kilometres away throughout the duration of this trip. I once did the same thing north of Chin Beach in order to get out of a group hike a day early.
The next day I knew we were up for a challenge ahead. This is the roughest section of trail and I wanted to make it to Sombrio Beach for the night. The trail in this section is constantly up, down, muddy, and slippery. Even in August there tends to be mud in the low areas... It is pretty hard to get through this section without at least one wipeout. There are many slippery logs that make balancing with a heavy pack very difficult.
The next section of this hike starts out like the rest: up, down, muddy, slippery... After a short period we ran into a cool extension bridge at Loss Creek. This was a real test of my dogs bravery. He made it across unscathed
We arrived at Sombrio Beach at 1430 and camped at the east end of the beach for a couple of reasons: the beautiful sand which allows for beach camping, close access to a second bathroom, our feet were tired and couldn't make it down the beach, and all the cool kids were doing it. We pulled the hiking boots off our old sore feet and put on bathing suits to soak up the sun.
Eventually these girls got tired and wandered off to bed; however, a couple of boys joined us from further west down the beach. They were both in a band called "Fins Out." We had a good long chat about music, since at that time I was lead guitar in a band as well.
Our fire started to fade eventually and some boys walking by suggested that we burn some of the old dried out kelp along the beach. We thought this might be a cruel and stinky joke so we only burned one small piece... It worked and created long lasting, hot coals!
After a while we became jealous of the helpful kelp boys from further down the east part of the beach. They were loud and we caught the glimmer of beer cans in their hands... A tasty treat not often packed in large quantities by hikers... So we ditched Fins Out and headed to kelp boy's fire. Turns out they were a stag from Vancouver with great music, good conversations, and a giant barrel of beer they packed from the parking lot. Did I mention they shared the beer? Success.
At the end of the night we sauntered back to our camp and laid in the sand. There was a magnificent meteor shower that night and we watched yelling "oooh" and "aaaaww" for quite some time before settling into our tent.
Because of all the fun we had the night before, we did not get the early start we planned... Did I mention we had someone coming to join us for the last leg of the trip? They ended up waking us up alarmingly... Probably a good thing too or we might have slept all day... We quickly packed up, brought our heavy bags to the car in the parking lot, and carried on with light day packs. I believe we started hiking again at 0930.
The last leg of our trip was a breeze. Our newly joined hiking partner had fresh long legs, and we found that we were jogging to keep up at some points. That didn't bother us! It felt good to be free of our heavy packs and hiking on flatter ground. In fact, this part of the trail has minimal elevation gain or loss.