Back for this year’s Sunshine Coast Trail adventure update, we have Guest Writer Peter!
This year we finished reading The Lord the Rings trilogy to the girls at bed time. There’s a definite appeal to having a singular goal each day: keep walking until you find Mt. Doom. I find that I’m often easily distracted and regularly begin a task before the last one is complete. Something about having one task and to keep just pressing forward resonates with me. Except for the part where Sam carries a cast iron frying pan on his pack – only a Hobbit would carry that much weight just to fry their second breakfast.
Last year, Pearl and I completed all 190+km of the Sunshine Coast Trail. Rose, not wanting to be outdone by her sister, has been eager to complete every section of the trail. I was happy to oblige, but wasn’t sure if I could pull it off this year as I’ve been recovering from a torn meniscus in my knee. By July I was climbing stairs with minimal pops and shimmies coming from my left leg and felt like it was time to get back on the trail. We booked a water taxi to take us from Lund to the most Northern section of the trail: Sarah Point. Once we finished the trail 50km further south, the plan was to catch the public bus, scheduled to come out to Lund twice a day, and pick up our car. It might be a bit more work to time our finish with the bus, but the backroad 4×4 shuttle had doubled in price in the past couple of years and I was thrilled to find a cheaper alternative to make our way to the beginning of the trail. Alas, the weather did not agree. Pulling off the ferry into Saltery Bay I got a call that our water taxi had been cancelled due to deteriorating sea conditions. I toyed with the idea of loading back onto the ferry and heading home but instead we pushed on to Powell River where I asked every old timer with a truck if they would kindly drive us out the old logging road. I offered the same cost as the water taxi, but no one was interested, so in the end I called the 4×4 shuttle to take us. This gave Rose and I time to pop into a coffee shop, have a chocolate crosspoint, and download some cartoons on my phone for poor weather tent entertainment.
An hour later and $319 poorer we had made it to Sarah Point.
We were a few hours behind our original start time, so I had to readjust how far we were going to hike on day one – and as a result this would change where we would stay each night. Within the first few hours of trail Rose had spotted a wild beaver swimming in a lake and twisted her ankle. We had her ankle taped up pretty quickly and we were back on the trail, stopping at Bliss Portage, barking at a colony of seals below at Okeover Inlet, and eventually ending the day at Wednesday Lake with a well-deserved swim and pot of hot ramen as the weather started to cool (recently learned how to dehydrate chicken, which we added to our ramen and made it extra satisfying).
The next day we opted to leave camp at 6AM without breakfast or even coffee (I did a series of stretches to wake up my knee though). We saved our breakfast for Manzanita Bluffs, a rocky outcropping overlooking Savary Island. As we soaked up the view, the rain started to fall and we retreated into the hut.
There were many ups and downs throughout the day. Bursts of energy, long ascents and descents, rocky cliffs, miles of moss, tired afternoon kilometres of putting one foot in front of the other, followed by frequent snack breaks. We did not see a single person that day. Often we play word games and guessing games to pass the time as we walk, but what I remember most were her stories. Rose has invented entire worlds, with intricate genealogies of beaver families, complete with forgotten languages, and detailed geographies that we’ll put down on a map someday. She shared with me the lore that she had clearly been thinking about for a while and the stories that she made up on the spot. That night we rolled into Rively Pond to find a campsite with about a dozen people!
The next day we spent leap frogging with the different groups on trail who started the morning at Rively Pond. Eventually we all met up at Little Sliamon Lake for a dip and a snack.
There are definite challenges in hiking over 50km with a heavy pack when you are 8-years-old. As these excursions become more of a routine, the girls know what to expect. They know that the hill or dense brush will end and eventually on the other side will be a beautiful view, a warm sleeping bag, and hopefully some good sugary snacks. Rose and I trekked the rest of the day back to the car. She was delighted to see the Marina and Restaurant where our new Subaru was parked. I’m pretty proud of what she accomplished, I know she is too, and I’m glad I got to spend the time to hear all of her stories.
At the very end we had a few extra minutes in town to see the Logger Sports and chain saw carving competition. It also gave us a chance to go to Dairy Queen before catching the big boat home.
Karissa Reads Books 