With parts of trail impassable and more rain on the way, Parks Canada is suggesting hikers consider delaying their trips — or be prepared to wait it out.
One of the hikers forced out in an evacuation of the West Coast Trail amid hazardous conditions says he experienced “torrential” rains for approximately 44 hours straight.
Patrick Laprise, who had travelled from Montreal with his 15-year-old son to hike the trail, called the state of the trail between Bamfield and Nitinaht Narrows “catastrophic.”
The two had started from the Pachena Bay trailhead on Saturday morning, setting up camp at the Tsocowis Creek campsite, about 16 kilometres from the trailhead, as early as possible because they were expecting rain.
That first day it was cold, about 13 C, and they got completely soaked, Laprise wrote on Tuesday morning from the Nitinaht Campground on Nitinaht Lake, where he and his son ended up after evacuating on Monday.
“It was hard to keep the essential stuff dry,” he said.
From Tsocowis Creek, Laprise said he and his son hiked on to Nitinaht Narrows and slept there on Sunday night, but after consulting the available information, they decided to leave the area when a boat became available.
Parks Canada warned Monday that current conditions have made sections of the West Coast Trail “impassable.” It said staff have responded to “a significant number of evacuation requests” as heavy rainfall in the area has caused creeks and rivers to run high, and it does not recommend crossing creeks or rivers on foot.
More rain was expected on Wednesday.
Many hikers were leaving from The Crabshack, a floating restaurant on the south side of Nitinaht Narrows, where there were boats to taxi people out, said Laprise, adding some were injured.
“A teenager that was on the trail broke his wrist, my son turned his ankle, an adult at the Crabshack had ruined his knee. And then all those people that were soaked and stuck had to evacuate, mostly because of a broken cable car.”
From what he heard from people who had arrived at the Crabshack, Laprise said, the cable car across Carmanah Creek required five people to get it working.
“But then also there were all the creeks that are flooded, and they interact with the tide and evolve so you don’t know when it will be passable,” he said.
Kim Dayman, who travelled from Regina to do the West Coast Trail with her husband and two friends, had planned to finish at Gordon Bay on Thursday after starting at the Pachena Bay trailhead.
But after getting “completely waterlogged,” they decided to evacuate from the Crabshack on Sunday.
Light rain had started on Saturday afternoon when they arrived at their camp at Darling River, said Dayman.
“It was raining when we were setting up camp and everybody just basically stayed in their tents and went to sleep, at four o’clock in the afternoon,” she said, with a laugh.
They got up early to hit the trail at 6 a.m. on Sunday to try and cross the next creek after Darling River before the water got too high.
But by the time they were at the Crabshack, they heard that the creek was starting to become impassible because of the high tide and high water flow, Dayman said.
Even that morning, trail conditions were already bad, she said. “When we were hiking the trail on the Sunday, it was like water up to your mid-shin through the entire trail.”
Dayman said cutting the trip short “was very disappointing” because they had travelled all the way from Saskatchewan to do the trail.
Parks Canada is recommending that hikers with upcoming reservations consider delaying their trips until Thursday.
It says those on the trail should continue their hike only if they are fully prepared and self-sufficient, with adequate supplies and rain gear, and should be prepared to wait for several days for water levels to go down.
Otherwise, they can self-evacuate through their starting point or at Nitinaht Lake, it says.
The popular hiking trail attracts more than 7,500 hikers per year.