The West Coast Trail - Best Hike In The World - Hiking 75km in 3 Nights - Vancouver Island

A 75 kilometer trek that begins in Gordon River and ends at Pachina Bay in Banfield. This hike has it all. Long ladders, boulders, surge channels, boardwalks, creek crossings, waterfalls, stunning camp spots on beaches and so much more. This is the place where every step you take hurts and feels awesome all at the same time. People come from all over parts of the world to take part in this adventure and I'm going to take you with me. So come on, let's go. Here we go. Thanks man. Oh that was a bit of a gut buster. We're on the south side at Gordon River and we're going to head to the north to Pachina Bay. You can do it north to south if you want to. This is the damage that the storms cause each year. That is the first bridge of the hike. We like to start on the south side just to get the hard section of the trail done first. So we got to the first kilometer marker. Took us about 30 minutes. These are new. So we're at the second ladder. This is a new ladder they just built. Any like tipped or angled boardwalks I try to avoid. I just walk up alongside them. I'm just getting ready to climb up these jagged rocks to Thrasher. It's just a twisty turdy up and down slog. So we're at the donkey engine. We usually stop and take a break here. They have good spots for sitting down. If you want to have like a drink, take a breath. That's a lot. There is so much going on in that first three kilometers. When you're coming down ladders make sure you always look down to make sure that they're not missing any rungs. At the highest point of the trail there's a little note on the tree saying that there's a beehive and about 20 feet up you just get attacked by bees. You can't miss it. I got stung in the face. I got stung on the leg. They're insane. Like they were swarming us. This is Log Jam Creek right before the junction. This is a good spot for a makeshift campground in case you don't want to go into Thrasher because of bad weather or something. So we made it to the junction of Thrasher Cove and we're going to go down and check it out. So come on let's go. So we're just on the final sections of ladder heading down into Thrasher. Let's go take a look at Thrasher Cove. The tide is still up a little bit too high for us to be doing this so we just scrambled across the rock and now we're going to go along the shoreline and see if we can do Owen's Point. I've been hiking for about an hour and it's just treacherous boulders and logs but we're making some progress so that's good. It's one of the very few moments that you get where you get to walk on sand. Wow this section is tough. So we just got done with all the boulders and now we're heading towards Owen's Point. Oh I'm excited and tired. So I think it's sea otters. Was it? I don't know. Have you seen them? I thought it was going to be way harder. We're starting to get closer to kilometer 65. Go back inland. Go to camper. We're at the beach access now. We're going to head back inland. So today we're just leaving camper and we're going to go and do the old sandstone route. Never done that before. And then we're going to see how we feel when we get to Walbrad and figure out if we want to go a bit farther. Maybe up to Cribs. So it should be a really good day. Come on let's go. Hey everyone so this is Sam. We met him on the trail. He's going to do Sandstone Creek with us and this is the huge search panel that we just went through right behind us. This all looks so cool. This is the second surge channel. It's probably good to drop your packs before you slide down the steep rock. I'm sure you can. I mean I'm sure the tide doesn't get above there. There he goes. I made it. When you come down there's these rocks and they are like they feel like they're covered in oil. Oh this section's a little crazy to get through. Now we're at the first big ladder section that we got to go up for the day. We just climbed off Sandstone Creek. Let's go. We're on the ladders just going down to Kalite Creek. So we just finished climbing up the Kalite ladders. We crossed through the creek just on the rocks. Yeah it's not too bad. We're just gonna finish going in the trail now. There's a couple muddy sections in this part of the trail. You just gotta go along the logs and try not to fall in. We're just walking into our first bog of the day. It is so beautiful. We're at the 57 marker so four more to Walbran. There's a new boardwalk here. There used to be a huge mud pit so it's nice that we don't have to walk through it anymore. This is Logan Creek Suspension Bridge. Look at how beautiful it is. So we're just coming down into Walbran. I'm excited. I'm getting tired of climbing through mud and roots. Time for the beach. We just did the Walbran cable car. Oh no it's dead already. It's treacherous. It's so hard pulling yourself across. We had to do it because the tides are way too high. So now I'm gonna go back inland. You can see a bunch of ladders that we have to climb up. Fun fun. So we just finished the inland section. It's actually not too hard at all. It's fairly dry. Easy going. Now we're going to go down the ladders. Go out onto the beach. This is Vanilla Campground right behind me. Really pretty. It has a waterfall. Not too many people stay here. This is your view. We're going to keep continuing on and we're going to head towards Cripps. It's my favorite campsite. So let's keep going. This is classic West Coast trail. This is where the uh old Monique's place used to be. Now it's called Naitong. I don't think they're open today so we're not going to be able to have something to eat. But that's okay. This is what it looks like. Now we're just going to put our shoes back on and head inland. This is the old junction to the Carmana Lighthouse that is now closed because you can't go up there no more. The staircase is very narrow. You have to take teeny tiny little steps. Mud anyone? I'm just going to do a quick little recap today because each day we got in too late and the sun was going down and we were just really tired. So day one we went to camper. We got off the boat at Gordon River. We did the long slog into Thrasher. Thrasher was beautiful. It took us three hours to get there and then I'm just folding up my pillow. The tide was up pretty high and we just sort of scurried along the top all the way to Owens Point. Owens Point was really nice and then we just walked on the shelf and by the time we got into camp it was 8 30 almost 9 so it was like dark. So the next morning we got up early at camper to do Sandstone Creek. We've never done it before. This is my 15th time doing this hike and we really wanted to just try to do everything that we've always wanted to do on this trail. We got to Walbran and the river crossing was too high so we couldn't get through there so we had to take the cable car. We stopped at Bonilla and Sam stayed there and then we came to Cribs. Today we're gonna try to get to Michigan. It's gonna be a really long day. 30 kilometers. Breakfast of champions. Pop tarts and really good coffee. We're just leaving Cribs Creek. If the tide is low enough you can go on the shelf. The hiking plans for today. We're gonna try and get to Michigan Creek. It's gonna be a long day but we can do it. The inland section from Cribs Creek into the trail is right there. If you have to go that way that sucks because the trail is shitty. This is Dare Creek. A lot of people camp in this area if you want a little bit extra privacy. To Dare Point it's some of the most beautiful beach walking on the trail. Later on I'm going to show you the best spot for beach walking on this trail. We're just going to go in at the beach access. You can keep going on but from what I remember it's real bouldery and I just don't feel like dealing with that today. You got to be careful on the old moss covered boardwalk. There's spots where it's slippery. It can bring you down. We're going to take the beach access. There's a couple ladders. When you take the beach access you have to do a bit of a boulder scramble and then you come back out onto this shelf. But on the other hand the inland was really smooth and quick. Just not as scenic. This is the beach and it'll take us down to the geewalk and that's where I'm going to show you my secret little spot. Walk as far as you can along this beach until you hit the geewalk river. Just coming back into the trail. The next stop is Knit Knot Narrows. I'm pretty sure this is the old dilapidated cabin that they used to sell cookies at. We're at kilometer 34. The trail conditions are very dry. Super easy moving. We're almost at the Knit Knot. We're just coming into the Knit Knot. We just left the crab shack. We got the little boat ride across. You just have to show them your permit. I didn't get a grilled cheese because there's too many people there. So I didn't want to wait like an hour, an hour and a half for one. Because we're on a mission today. You ready to hike to Michigan today babe? Hopefully. You think we'll make it? Yeah well you have this. This used to be a massive mud pit. Now it's just stairs leading all the way down. This is the west coast trail from north to south in 2016. You get a nice little beach access where you can walk out on the beach instead of in the murky trail. This is Sequadra. People used to be able to camp here about 10 years ago under the tarp shelters. Going back out onto the beach. Holly's right behind me but the tide is low. You just get to see a video. Around the corner. Can anyone guess where Mike is? So we're at Susiet Falls. That spot right there is usually where we camp. It's our favorite spot. Not today though. We're just going to stop here for a break and then get going. We just got to the top of the Susiet ladders. The waterfall is just beyond that. The benefit from going south to north is the Klanawa ladder. You get to go down it instead of up it. This is the Klanawa river. Now we're going to go back inland for another three and a half kilometers. I just climbed up three more ladders. We're at the donkey engine. These are all over the west coast trail ground. The trail guardians in this section do an awesome job of building things for us. There's a bench and some stools. From the beach access heading north, the trail is so well taken care of. It's easy going. It's a nice break from the hard side. Creek. It's a small little campsite. Poor guy. So it's the morning of day four. I'm just going to do a recap of yesterday. We left Cribs Creek and went up the shelf to Dare Point and we went down to the Chiwot River. Then we made our way to the Crab Shack and we didn't have time to get a grilled cheese because there was too many people there. We were kind of chasing the waves the whole way, running away from them, trying not to get wet. Then we went up the ladders and we got into the trail. There's barely any mud. You could just zoom through there. We came out at Sakawas and the beach walking was horrendous. There's a sea lion at Michigan. It's actually not too far from us. And then we just got a spot right in the front here by the creek and I'm just packing up the tent and we're gonna go get out today. We're just getting ready to Michigan Creek. I got my Pop-Tart and we're gonna do the last 12k out of here. Should be a great day. We just passed the 11 kilometer mark. The trail is a bit muddy with a bunch of incline. This is the old Pechita Lighthouse behind me. Kilometer 10. The trail is pretty smooth sailing right here. We're getting through here pretty quick. Three more kilometers to go. The trail is very easy walking in here. Just got out of the trail access. Now we're on Pechita Bay. Oh man, we're done. That was an awesome trip. We're at the end of the video. I hope you enjoyed all the mud.