Wake-up is at 5:45 am. All through the hike, I am awake, alert and up before the ‘tent shaking’ wake-up call. It is dark at 5:45; dawn is just after 6:00 am. We need to break camp and park the cars to catch the boat to the trailhead at 8:20.
Doug and my inexperience shows through. We suffer from packing stress while stuffing sleeping bags, sleeping pads, putting away the tent, attaching the tent, packing the rucksack etc. Kelsey and Philipp advise. In the first few days, we we inevitably remember that we need to keep accessible something (sunglasses, snacks, suntan lotion) that is already packed deep. It takes us two to three days before packing is a relatively smooth process.
Philipp and Kelsey park the cars at 7:30 am. We meet them at the briefing office a few hundred yards from our camping spot. I have headed out a little early in order to take advantage of the last porcelain we will see until the end of the hike.
At the dock outside the office, there is a fish scale with a hook on which we can weigh our packs. The non-guide packs weigh from 34.5 lbs to 46 lbs. Joy’s is the lightest and Marlene’s pack is close at 36.5 lbs. I have the heaviest at 46 lbs; Steve is carrying 45.5 and Doug’s pack weighs in at 42. I am somewhat mystified as to how I am carrying so much. Have I over packed? Later I realize that about a quarter of the weight is clothes and personal belongings; the rest is the pack, sleeping bag and pad, tent, food bag, 2.5 lbs of snacks, 2 plus liters of water (4.5 – 5 lbs). I really have not brought too much. Actually Philipp’s pack is the heaviest at 60 lbs and Kelsey’s is 42. Later Kelsey explains to me that 30% of body weight is a reasonable standard. By that standard, Philipp and Kelsey have the ‘heaviest’ packs at 42% and 38% of body weight. I am barely hitting 25%.
We all climb into a flat bottom boat that takes us ten minutes across the mouth of Gordon River to the trailhead. After pictures, we start into the rain forest. Although we can often see the bay to our left through the trees, we are high up above the shore with a steep slope descending left. The rain forest is hemlock, cedar and Sitka spruce. Along the way, we see large banana slugs – they vary in color from all green to half green, half yellow or half green, half black. Apparently if you lick a banana slug, it will temporarily numb your tongue. No one tries this out.
The trail is difficult, up and down, at time muddy. At times we are climbing carefully through systems of tree roots. We need to watch every step. We stop at the steam donkey for lunch – thin round bread with smoked salmon, cheese, cucumbers, tomatoes and candy for dessert. The steam donkey is an old, rusted, abandoned steam engine that was used for logging many, many years ago.
All along the trail, we saw cedar stumps or fallen cedar trunks. Often another tree – cedar or hemlock – would have grown on the stump or trunk. These are known as nurse stumps or trunks. We would see large cedars that had grown on a stump of another cedar after which the stump had rotted away creating a cave in the root system at the base.
Like redwoods, cedars contain tannin that protects them from insects. It also coloured the river water so that our drinking water was often light brown coloured even after filtering.
We continued along the difficult trail going up and down a couple of ladder systems. We pass the highest point on the entire trail (260 meters (?)). We have been warned about a wasps’ next just before the junction down to Thrasher Cove. We pass it carefully and together; otherwise the first people past stir up the wasps for those who follow. We hear later that someone was bitten 14 times on her way by. We have only traveled 5 km to the junction and it is nearly 4 pm. To get to Thrasher Cove, we still need to descend a couple of hundred meters. Part of the descent is a steep trail and part is a long ladder system.
We arrive tired but happy at 4:30 pm. We meet two Germans who had crossed Gordon River with us at the start. They arrived nearly two hours before us. As will become the routine, we immediately set up camp and unpack while Philipp and Kelsey start heating two pots of water for hot drinks and dinner.
Marlene, Joy, Martin, Doug and I swim in the ocean. It is cold so our swimming is more a dash and a dive in waist deep water. Dinner is spaghetti with rehydrated carrots, onions and mushrooms and soy meat. It is one-pot cooking and very good. I was carrying the spaghetti and I am happy to lose the weight. After dinner, we sit by a campfire and watch the sun go down. We are all in bed by 9:30. Kelsey and Philipp put away the food bags with any toiletries with a scent (toothpaste, deodorant, sun tan lotion) in the bear-proof lockers. This will be a standard routine each evening.