Day 6 Cribs Creek to Tsusiat Falls (16 km)…

What better way to start out day 6 than to show you all what an obstacle course it was to go to the outhouse. A hundred meters down the beach, and over a tangle of huge drift logs and rocks, then into the forest. This is no hop skip and jump across a few downed trees, no sir! This is a major expedition across logs you would put across a major roadway to stop battle tanks. Try finding your way through that in the dark. I’ll bet you almost everybody finds somewhere else to go in the middle of the night. Anyway this day has lots of pictures, the first of which is the way to the composting toilets:

This was one of the easier paths to the composting toilets. The fishing floats are everywhere; they are lost from ships and gathered by hikers to mark strategic locations such as composting toilets or beach access points back to inland trails. Many hikers have carved their names into these floats. Better the floats than the trees I guess.

This grass is tougher than you are. I don’t think it is native, but then neither are you. (I’m using the generic “you” here). I don’t think you or I could survive a winter exposed like that on the beach.

Cribs Creek was one of the better campgrounds I think. Here is a view looking inland at a bridge across the creek. Can you guess why the fishing floats are here?

Here we are walking along the beach at low tide, heading toward Tsusiat Falls, trying to avoid the green slime of death on the rocks:

What was it like walking down a totally deserted beach in the middle of nowhere on the Pacific coast? Ask this guy:

No, really, there is a lone hiker in that last picture! And now for some spectacular photos! This area was the “oceaniest” area and time of the whole trip! There were a lot of tide pools and interesting surf happening. Well, judge for yourself:

This photo shows a hard working starfish scaling the precipitous heights of Mount Exposed Reef.

The next picture is exactly the same except that the ocean, not caring a whit about the starfish, tries to assert it’s authority over the same reef:

The next photo captures the expression of a similar starfish engaged in a similar battle against the waves. This one is, I’m almost certain, giving us the finger!

Another type of starfish is known as a Sea Star and has up to 10 or more tentacles. Some are bright red like these, others are dark purple. Here is a photo of one of the many tide pools we lingered at during our hike to Tsusiat Falls. You will see some shellfish, an anemone, and some purple sea urchins. I have to stress the “no harm came to these animals during the shooting of these photos” disclaimer. So without harming the anemones in any way except perhaps for a bit of disappointment, we gently and carefully inserted a ski pole tip, brushing very lightly the green tentacles. The anemones reacted by closing around the tip in the hopes of a meal. It was interesting. After they realized it was not food they let go by themselves. They felt very strong and sticky. I would really hate to stick my finger in one. Here is a picture:

Our camera has a hard time focusing under water so I am glad it turned out as well as it did. I have an interesting observation to make about the purple sea urchins. These next two pictures show an overview of a tide pool and an out of focus close-up of the sea urchins. They are “sitting” in a nice rounded hole in the rock perfectly suited to their shape. I do not know if they actually eat or etch out the rock or if they merely take advantage of a concretion that weathered out of the rock or if it is a combination of both processes. But the holes are certainly the exact shape and size of the animal, and wouldn’t it be quite a co-incidence if this particular rock just happened to have a lot of perfectly round concretions the same size as the urchins that just weathered out of the rock leaving a hole? Although I can’t imagine how they eat the rock, I saw no evidence of existing concretions that were still in the rock like you would expect to see. How about it all you biologists and geologists out there? Would you care to comment? Here is the overview:

And here is a close-up. Look at how perfect the holes (which are occupied by living urchins) are:

These next three photos are in sequence. I hope to illustrate the dynamism of the ocean by showing a reef before, during, and after a crashing wave washes over it. The tiny orange spots are starfish clinging to the reef. I want you to feel the salt spray, the wind, the sun and sand, to hear the sound of the crashing waves and the enigmatic calls of the sea birds emerging from the mysterious mist:

Guess what? Here is a picture of Jutta! She is our heroine because of her resourcefulness and her courage. I promised you a story about her and here it is, but first her picture:

Jutta was behind us back at Vancouver Point as you recall. She had also found Walbran Creek to be uninviting and decided to move on but unfortunately she was too late, the tides had come in and Vancouver Point was impassable. Since there was no beach access back to the trail she had to backtrack several kilometers to Walbran. By that time it was getting dark and she was alone, tired, hungry, and very concerned. The campground was completely deserted and she began worrying about where she would spend the night. She was concerned about the possiblity of an encounter with either bears, cougars, or both. She had to camp now because of the darkness so what did she do? She decided to climb up a ladder onto the cable car platform which was just barely large enough contain her tiny barnacle tent and there she spent the night secure in knowing that the bears and cougars could not attack her there. She said she kept waking up all night relieved to find out she was still alive. Imagine if it were YOU and you were all alone in a darkening deserted beach with a backpack full of food and no help in sight. What would you have done? Clever girl! I did not have the heart to tell her a cougar could easily have scaled the platform if it had a mind to. As an interesting aside, news of her adventure traveled far and fast thanks to the trail guardians and other hikers so she became quite famous.

Here is a picture of Jutta and Marilyn looking at tide pools:

And looking oceanward, more reefs, birds, and starfish! An excellent and refreshing area!

A view of one of the points we walked around just before Tsusiat:

After hiking 16 interesting kilometers, it was time to make camp at Tsusiat, and not a moment too soon as sunset was fast approaching. We camped at the base of the cliffs. This was interesting in three ways. First, the cliffs reflected back the warmth of the sun. Secondly, the cliffs focused and amplified the roar of the ocean to almost deafening loudness all night long. It was like were were at the focal point of an acoustic parabola. Thirdly, the cliffs funnelled the wind through our tents. Jutta set up her tent beside ours.

I keep saying we were very lucky because it was such a dry year, not raining at all during our trip. And you have seen that all the creeks were so very dry we hardly ever had to use a cable car. Here is a picture of the falls, with what little ribbon of water remaining falling into a pool at the bottom. I guess in normal years it is a huge waterfall spanning much more of the cliffs. We still managed to take ourselves a shower! I don’t know why the bottom of the photo is so blue.

With sunset fast approaching, I took some photos of the rising moon to the south, and of the sunset to the north. After the chores of setting up camp, washing, and eating were over we leaned on the cliffs spotting whale blow far out to sea. Then when it got dark we had a small fire and chatted a while with Jutta. Then we went to bed.

The worst of the trail was over. From now on the trail would become wider and better. Tomorrow we would head out to Michigan Creek.