If you ask me how long I planned for this hike, I could you give a number of answers.

6 years ago, I was having lunch with my family in Vancouver and an old friend, who was also a hiker. Over lunch he asked me to do the PCT. I suggested we start with something local and where we have healthcare and support. “Would you be interested in the West Coast Trail?”, I asked. He responded with a yes.

Over the following 2 years, I collected the gear I needed, I worked out and I did full gear backcountry practices including The Queen Elizabeth II Provincial Park. It is also during this time that I consciously discovered the Bruce Trail for what it is and made completion its 900km a goal.

4 years ago, 2019, my friend and I set out NOBO, North Bound, from Port Renfrew/Gordon River. Our strategy was to begin with the hardest end and get it over with. Unfortunately, the boulders leaving Thrashers Cove on the second left him injured. Though he made it through to Camper Bay and decided to go for it another day. However, by the time we got to Walbran, he was done. For safety reasons, they don’t do rescues at Walbran, unless a person requires a helicopter. Because of this we had to hike to Carmanah Lighthouse to see if they would do a rescue, which they did. You can read the recaps for Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4.

Fast forward to the infamous 2020, I found myself a member of a great hiking group and as these things happen met some lovely people. Among these awesome folk. In 2021, I found 4 others who could and would do this hike. And so the new preparation began. We did practice overnight backpacking hikes, zoom calls about gear, costs, and logistics. I went through the tide calendar for July and August, hoping to find favourable tides around the August long weekend. This would allow everyone to save one holiday day and give us the biggest chance of having good weather.

And so it would have, Parks Canada introduced a new reservation system and changed their usual reservation dates to begin on March 25th – while I was skiing in Tremblant. Reservations were to go live at 8:00am Pacific Time/ 11:00 am Eastern Time. I did some runs and then returned to log into all my devices along with my hiking mates who were back in Toronto. The new reservation system no longer followed the first come first serve order. I would say, it’s more like a lotto system. As luck would have it, the last member of our group to login was the one let into reservations first and was to get the exact dates we wanted.

This is when things got real! Right away I booked my flights, the West Coast Trail Bus and the our campsite at Pacheena Bay.

We continued with our overnight backpacking training and headed to Wiarton for one more group overnight backpacking trip and last pre-WCT hike and get together in the Burlington area.