Day 3 Camper Bay to Logan (6 km)…

We left Camper Bay and continued on our way to Logan Creek. Hanno and Geli and Jutta were left behind temporarily. Again, the weather was perfect. Here is a picture of some of the boardwalks built to avoid the mud and also to protect the trail and the delicate plant life. In places hikers have worn a knee deep or deeper narrow “canyon” in the trail but these are only a few feet long. Those beige nylon pants I am wearing had split at the crotch and I had to sew them shut. When that failed, I had to use duct tape. That lasted for a while too but I eventually had to wear my shorts for the rest of the trip.

The next picture shows the boardwalk has been washed away and we had to jump into that mud pit to reach the boardwalk which continued on the other side.

Eventually we reached…more ladders…which led to a very nice boardwalk section in a bog area, about a km or so long.

This bog area has trees probably every bit as old and older than the giant trees we had just left. Because of the difficult growing conditions, the trees are stunted. In this bog are lots of cool plants like the carnivorous sundew, and we did not see it but one of the hikers we met later on said he saw cougar and bear tracks in the bog beside the boardwalk.

After this lengthy bog area, we again entered the forest. In the West Coast Trail there are often cliffs on the ocean side of the trail. These cliffs are covered with a lot of Salal bush undergrowth so thick it blocks the wind, and along with the giant Sitka Spruce, really protects the inland ecosystem from the ocean salt spray and wind. The ecology there is very fascinating and I am not doing it justice with my brief descriptions. In this shot, Marilyn gives scale as she follows me on the trail through a huge tree covered in moss. Note in the right of the picture the trail used to go over this log as you can see steps cut into the log. I guess they eventually just cut these donuts out of the tree for easier access:

So on we went UP huge root cliffs and DOWN huge root cliffs. Good hiking boots will save you from injury. When you are stepping over a huge mass of roots you don’t often know what is on the other side of the place you step into and there are a lot of “ambush” sticks and roots that stab you in almost every conceivable place in your foot. You get stabbed in the ankles, in the sides, and on the tops by these woody projections so even good leather boots take a beating. But better the boots than your feet. One time I stepped over a root mass easily enough but as gravity began helping me down the step an overhanging branch caught the side of my pack. Since I was essentially in freefall while I was stepping down, it spun me around and threw me off balance just enough to send my forehead into a very strong sharp stick which by coincidence was conveniently at eye level. I have a thick skull apparently because it did not draw much blood. But I was stopped from a fall by colliding with a sharp stick with my skull. In hindsight, it did come uncomfortably close to my eye…which goes to show all you experienced people out there that ANYTHING can happen no matter how much experience you have. This is no place for making mistakes. Here I am taking a short breather after climbing over and stepping down over the 4 millionth root obstacle. And I mean 4 million quite literally.

We took a little detour at a place called Cullite Creek which was our original destination, as we wanted to camp at Cullite Cove. We wanted to have a rest day there before we tackled the mega-ladders at Logan. I guess Logan is infamous for having a huge series of ladders. At least that is the impression we got during our research before our trip. But when we got to Cullite we did not find the campground itself right away. We thought it was probably on the OTHER side of the headland so we continued on. By the time we had climbed the ladders and up onto the trail on the other side of Cullite Creek, we met another hiker going the other way and he said we had passed Cullite Cove so we decided to continue on to Logan rather than go back to Cullite. Hanno and Geli passed us while we were at Cullite and we met them again after we arrived in Logan. Jutta stayed behind in Camper Bay but she caught up to us at Cribbs Creek later on. The ladders into and out of Logan deserve their reputation as being the most challenging if memory serves me right. Who can say? Here is a picture of the suspension bridge at Logan and a picture looking toward the ocean. Though you can’t see the ocean it is on the other side of those logs. The creek in the foreground is Logan Creek. You have to go a bit upstream to get fresh water as most of the creeks are tidal…near the ocean they can be salty from the tides.

I think these last two pictures were actually taken the next morning as we were leaving Logan.

That’s about it for Day 3. We got there late and tired as usual. But it was spectacular. Stay tuned, more fun is coming as we go on an 11 km hike to Chez Monique’s in Day 4…