West Coast Trail

[msommers]

After trying to organize something for a couple years now, it's finally happening. Not the most ideal time, May long, but I'll take it. Starting to put together a list to bring to MEC of stuff I'll need. Any comments are greatly appreciated.

- Backpack 65L (80L seems like a lot and probably end up taking too much shit)
- Stove/boiler
- Cookware
- Gaitors
- Laces/socks/waterproof
- Bear spray
- Water treatment. Have a pump-style filter in mind. I've used them before and am kicking myself for not buying one sooner.

I have a synthetic sleeping bag but need to find a waterproof bag for it. Thermorest, good hiking boots, clothes are covered.

The one thing I'm kind of unsure on is oddly food. I've gone on 2-3 day overnight trips and just brought enough food to last me like oatmeal, beef jerky, trail mix/granola, sandwiches. Now I'm not totally sure if that'll still be fine or I should look into other avenues.

Lastly, one person in the group really wants to start from the south end to get the hardest part over with at the beginning. I'm neutral on it, rather just get some ideas where you guys started and if one is better than the other, somehow.

[freshprince1]

I've done the WCT, it was a great expereince. Here's some of my suggestions:

- Bring a good rainsuit. It will rain for probably 25% of the hike.

- Gaitors are a must. I see you have those.

- I didn't worry about a waterproof sleeping bag, I just packed it up and stored it in an industrial-thick garbage bag.

- Bring lots of large, freezer ziploc bags and put everything in them.

- I divided my pack up into several portions and put them all in
garbage bags. It was a bit of a hassle, but well worth it. Even with a pack cover, there is a strong likelyhood moisture will find it's way through. It did in mine, but everything stayed bone dry because I had it all in garbage bags.

- Do not slack on hanging your food. Keep all food pff the ground overnight. I left my food bag on a log one night down on the beach and mice chewed several holes through the bag.

- For food, I find bringing powdered milk really opens up a lot of options. I bring a crap load of powdered milk and a bunch of "Sidekicks" (i.e. nice pasta sidedishes like Fettucini alfredo, pesto, etc...). They're also really light. With the PM (powdered milk) it also makes hot chocolate a lot better. You can bring Mac & Cheese using PM instead of butter. Bring a crapload of trailmix and jerky. Some jiffypop is really nice over the fire on the beach at night.

- Try some group meals. Pack some canned Ham, fry in a pan over the fire. It's heavy, so the night you eat the Ham, share with the team and get them to donate some sides (i.e. Sidekicks, dried potatoes...etc). A few slices will do you good, and it feels nice to get some meat in the diet ont he trail (even if it is canned ham or corned beef).

- We started from the North and went south and I really like it that way. It gave me time to get into the zone before the really crazy portions.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

[Affinityion]

Don't forget a well stocked First-Aid Kit you can keep in your pack, along with a utility knife/hatchet/etc for general use. Not sure whether you're going to use a cook fire or are bringing a propane stove but matches, flint/steel as backup, lighters as backup for the backup etc.

[msommers]

Good advice there guys. Forgot to mention I have Gore-tex pants and shell. Knife is on-route but I think a small tree saw could definitely be handy! Probably do a mix of fire-types depending on the weather of course but waterproof match container and fire-starters is something I'll throw on the list. Med-kits we have and also one hiker is a paramedic and might be "borrowing" some work supplies. But I'm glad you mentioned them now and I didn't impulse buy at MEC!

Sidekicks are a great idea! Why didn't I think of that before haha. I bet those microwave rice packets would work well too. I figured canned tuna would work well but I was really curious about that being more-so attracting to bears than the other meals. A hungry bear is a hungry bear I suppose.

Freshprince, how many days were you on the trail for? Good pace?

Thx guys
Matt

[BerserkerCatSplat]

Very cool, WCT is on our to-hike list for 2013. We'll do the Juan de Fuca trail this year if we get the opportunity.

Cut weight where you can. The less you carry the more you'll enjoy it, and if I remember correctly the WCT has a serious number of ladders you'll have to climb - no fun with a heavy pack.

I'm no ultralight gram weenie, but I find that putting my stuff into geargrams.com makes planning my pack much easier. Once you start creating gear lists it's easy to see where things get heavy. This will also define what pack size you get; let your gear load define your pack size, not the other way around.

Water treatment: I hate pumps. They're bulky and annoying to use. I got a Platypus gravity filter and I love it. (I think they're called Gravityworks now, I have the older Cleanstream.) Up to 8L of drinkable water per trip to the water source and the only effort required is to carry it back to camp and hang it in a tree. I usually set up camp while the water filters, and even then filtering 4L of water takes only a few minutes. The whole kit rolls up into a little mesh bag and you can stash it anywhere.

Bear spray: Good idea. Make sure it's accessible, I hang mine from my waist belt via carabiner.

Gaiters: Also a good idea, just keep them simple and light.

Cookware: Again, the simple/light rule applies. If you're soloing, Backcountry.com has super-inexpensive titanium sets (1650mL and a smaller one I can't remember). I just got mine and haven't used it on the trail yet, but they're well-regarded for the price. For 3 or more people who will share food/cooking supplies, I'm a fan of the MSR Base 2 pot set. You can eat straight out of your pots, or if you're divvying it up I like the GSI nesting plastic bowl/mug set. Nice and light, cheap, and you can store things inside of it, like your soap and scrubbies. Your stove will usually pack into your pots.

Stove: Tough decision. I use an MSR Whisperlite International, it's a bit on the heavy side but very reliable and I like using the refillable white gas bottles. The compressed-gas stoves are lighter and simpler, but I've never used one long-term so I don't know how many fuel cans you'd have to carry for a trip the length of the WCT.

Sleeping-bag bag: Many ways to do this. Lots of folk will grab a heavy-duty contractor garbage bag and use it to line the inside of their pack (ie bag goes in pack, everything then goes inside the bag), thus keeping everything dry, and especially effective when used with a pack cover. Also quite cheap. If you want something specifically for your sleeping bag (hey, it's important!) the Outdoor Research AirPurge DryComp compression sack is pricey but awesome for sleeping bags.

Food is pretty personal, but dry/dehydrated stuff is nice for low weight and bulk. Canned stuff is heavy, and you're still left packing out the can when you're done eating it. Quite a bit of the commercial boil-in-bag stuff is pretty tasty, too. Even instant ramen noodles will work in a pinch, although are of questionable food value. Trailcooking.com had lots of good ideas but the site is down at the moment. Jiffy Pop is my luxury campfire food, haha.

You didn't mention what your shelter arrangements are, but if you're sharing a tent, the little extra weight of a camp-shower bag might be worth it after a few days on the trail. Also make sure your rain gear is up to snuff, the WCT is known for being very, very wet. Fast-drying synthetic clothing is also important, the usual no-cotton-whatsoever rule applies. Along with a good First Aid kit, have extra cream or moleskin for blisters; they may seem trivial but can cause you no end of problems.

[freshprince1]

I believe we did it in 6 days, which provided for a nice balanced pace. Depending on which camps ite we were at we'd hike more in one day than others. For example, if we had a beach camp coming up, we'd hike longer the day before so we'd have time to relax and enjoy the beach. It also allowed to slow down during the harder spots like when we hiked through the sand, mud and ladders.

Oh, the ladders. You're gonna love that.

Also, have everyone bring two tarps. You cannot have enough tarps when setting up camp in day 2 of solid rain. Make sure you have something to make a shelter besides your tent. You don't want to get stuck in your tent for 2 days straight if it rains continuously. We set up camp everyday, I had a tarp below my tent, and above if possible, and we also set up a couple more tarps for eating areas. You don't want to eat in your tent, and it's nice to eat with the others when it's raining.

[revelations]

We started on the south end.... big mistake. You have the heaviest pack and it will be a mix of mud/roots/rocks on the trail the first 3 days. Your body goes into shock adjustment mode.... haha Lots of stairs at that portion too.... esp at the start.

Watch out for sand fleas - depending on time of year I guess. Maybe shave your legs? (seriously).

Your choices will be beach or trail.

Beach, while flat, means walking on sand.
Trail, while compacted, means walking up and down all day.

I slept under the stars the entire time so i cant comment on shelter

(we did it in late Sept, best time)

[msommers]

Lots of good advice guys, I really appreciate it. The last thing I want to be doing is be scrambling to pack and forget something. Knowing me, it would be my food and sleeping bag.

Tarps! Yes I read about that. Are there just generic version or light-weight versions of these?

Water - I'll look into those gravity filters more. In the field for work we used an older version of this and it took a lot of abuse and worked like a hot damn. Pump rate could have been faster I suppose. We'll have ~8 people in our group and I'm not sure if everyone is planning on bringing their own water treatment but I want my own anyways for future trips. FYI, those pen types are a pain.

I have a very light 2-man tent I picked up from a fellow beyonder than I'm confident will work very well for this. Is a Big Agnes for anyone interested.

Something else I just remembered is a head lamp but that's minimal.

Stove - I was looking at the MSR Reactor and the Jetboil systems. I'll have to look more into this.

Trevor the cookware I think you were referring to is this ? On 50% off!

[BerserkerCatSplat]

Yup, that's the smaller (soloist) version of the ones I bought. They're ridiculously light and for the price I couldn't say no! I got mine through Backcountry's outlet site, Department of Goods. Lots of fairly reasonable deals to be found there, got some nice Komperdell trekking poles for 70% off at the same time as the pot set. The pot set would be kinda redundant if you go for a Jetboil system, though.

There's lots of tarps out there, from your average blue WalMart tarp (cheap, heavy, bulky) to the nice silnylon tarps available at MEC (light, packable, expensive). MEC also carries "normal" camping tarps that fall in between those two in terms of weight and cost. Now, if you're handy with a sewing machine and can do hems and a French seam, it's super easy to buy some 2nds-quality silnylon from DIYGearSupply and make your own custom tarp. The last one I made was a 14ftx10ft caternary-cut 70D silnylon tarp, and it cost me ~$50 worth of materials. To buy a similar one would be in the area of $150.

Oh, and your tent sounds solid, Big Agnes makes good gear. If it's a used tent, you might want to consider re-sealing the tent's seams before you head out. A tube of seam sealer is cheap and will be good peace of mind for a trail as wet as the WCT.

[freshprince1]

They have some really nice tarps at Costco right now on sale int he camping section (at the Okotoks Costco at least). They're a bit heavier duty but they probably wouldn't rip if you tried. I just used the regular ones from Canadian Tire, they worked just fine.

Eddie Bauer has some nice cheap headlamps that are water resistant. They work just as good as the really expensive ones from MEC, they're just a bit bulkier. I didn't use a headlamp on the WTC.

Bring a some flip flops. Change into them after you reach camp each day. It gives your boots time to air out and your feet a chance to relax.

[BerserkerCatSplat]

http://www.princessauto.com/pal/prod...l-Utility-Tarp

10ftx15ft tarp, just over 1KG, $6. Not the most easily packed thing in the world, but dirt-cheap and not horribly heavy.

[Eleanor]

Originally posted by freshprince1
Bring a some flip flops. Change into them after you reach camp each day. It gives your boots time to air out and your feet a chance to relax.

This, except instead of flip flops, get a pair of crocs. (Some) toe protection & way more comfortable IMO. I never go camping without them.

Plus they dry out quicker than most flip flops I've owned.

It looks like you've got most everything else hammered out, but I'd recommend against the jet boiler, it's great for boiling water, but to have even one or two meals cooked "normally" is a huge mental boost after eating non-stop freeze dried stuff for a few days.

[msommers]

Nice find! I'll have to swing by MEC and check out those light-weight tarps and figure out how badly I don't want to spend 50+/ea. But I'm pretty keen on saving weight so we'll see. I agree with the redundancy about the pot set + Reactor/Jetboil system. Your suggestion is quite a bit cheaper though so I'm definitely going to have to look into it more.

FP, thanks about the headlamp. I was actually quite shocked to see how expensive those things are. Cheap flip-flops - added. I'm assuming you used a rain cover on your backpack and then for added insurance went with the double bagging route for each item? I suppose dry-sacs are a bit of overkill hey?

Socks yes I've picked out some really good ones at MEC. These are expensive but uncomfortable feet are not fun - I have one single pair now and they are pretty darn nice to have.

Have you guys used dry food from MEC? Friends are heard a lot of mixed reviews on them, not in terms of taste/quantity, but actually making you sick and giving you the runs. The last thing anyone wants in the bush.

I'm thinking I'll bring some crystal-lite or powdered gatorade along.

I found a CBC documentary on The Trail. Not sure if it's motivating or detering...

[davidI]

Just hiked the JDF and WCT in 2010. Traveling the next couple of days but I'll fill you in on some good advice once I'm settled back in Calgary.

[Babaganoosh]

I wouldnt bother much with tarps, you wont want to spend the time to set them up after hiking all day, most tents have a fly you can cook under while you lay inside.

Definitely get a headlamp, the Petzl ones at mec are a bit expensive but theyre worth it, ive had mine for about 2 years of backpacking and months of hiking trips and mine still works perfectly. If you buy a cheap one it will break at the worst time, guaranteed.

On the food, sidekicks are the bees knees. When i did WCT i had a load of those, some shitty noodle soups, big bag dried fruit and one of dried beans and peas, lots of granola etc. A couple of those mec meals are good, but im cheap so I never eat them much, never had any problems from them either though. Good way to supplement all the cardboard/carbs is with those bags of soy protein ground at mec. One of them has tons in it and it just tastes like slightly bland ground beef when you put it in the pasta sidekicks, but keeps you from getting hungry again in an hour.

WCT is 5-6 days and JDF 2-3 if youre in fairly good shape. No rest days included.

Regarding beaches vs. woods sections, mix it up, the grass is always greener on the other side...

[msommers]

^^Thanks for the info!

[stacy28]

It's been a long time since I did the West Coast Trail, but I remember one of my favourite meals while on it was pizza. Not sure if they still sell it, but you used to be able to by a kit at the grocery store that's pretty compact. We brought mozzarella cheese with us - as long as you eat it within the first few days on the trail it will still be good We cooked it over the camp stove in a frying pan with a cover on it.

I think there's lots of food that you can bring outside of what's sold at MEC - you just have to go to the grocery store and think creatively

It's an amazing hike, I did it when I was 12 and again when I was 13. I hear a lot has changed since then - there were no "stores" along the way and I think maybe one outhouse the whole way.

Have a great time!!!

[davidI]

Ok, lots of good points in here already. Weight is key. I've done a lot of backpacking and go with less every trip.

Skip a big knife / hatchet. No need. Leatherman is handy.

Skip the tarps as well IMO. You can usually find a bit of tree cover for cooking.

Lightweight tent is great. MSR Hubba Hubba is my favourite.

For sleeping bags, try to get away from down and stick with hyperloft or something. If a down bag gets wet its a nightmare to dry and won't keep you warm.

For a stove I went with the MSR Pocket Rocket. Super light.

For food, I actually decided to skip pots and pans this trip and just brought a 150g aluminum kettle. Oatmeal for breakfast, snacks for lunch (pepperoni sticks, crackers, granola bars, trail mix, nuts cheese etc.) and dehydrated meals in a bag for dinner. Saves time, clean-up, and most importantly, weight. I thought the MEC meals were reasonably tasty and I never had the runs.

Bring some cash for a burger and beer at Chez Moniques. It's expensive but worth it. They also have a food store there if you feel like swapping food, ditching food, or are in need of a bit.

I hiked North to South just so my pack would be lighter for the hard part of the trail. In reality, the JDF was much harder than the WCT so it didn't matter much. I took a break between the two trails though as at least I wasn't carrying 14 days worth of food.

For water treatment, I just used tablets. They're easy, fast, and there is no chance of breakage or the filter getting clogged. Had a bad time with a filter system in the Canyonlands because of rains / murky water which clogged the filter.

Fire sticks are great for getting fires going - it can be tough to find dry tinder.

I like bringing drink crystals and a camelbak. Have a Nalgene bottle for your tent as well though. Critters will chew through water bladders if they have sugars or flavouring in them.

Starbucks sells good coffee singles as well. Not sure if there are cheaper coffee singles available...I seem to find them everywhere else in the world but haven't seen them in Canada.

Bear Spray and Gators are both smart to have. Make sure you waterproof your boots - Dubben or whatever.

If you have any specific Q's I'd be happy to answer them. If I can dig out my map I'll recommend some campsites for you.

My recommendation is to try and walk extra your first day so you can offset yourself from the campgrounds everyone else stays at.

Enjoy!

[msommers]

Thanks! I feel considerably more prepared than I did starting this thread and even then I was pretty confident - humbling. I'll update when it's closer to the date for others and to make sure I didn't forget anything. Until then, it's off to MEC...

[Singel]

Large pack liner is way better than garbage bags: http://www.mec.ca/AST/ShopMEC/Packs/...pack-liner.jsp . I wouldn't bother with an extra bag for your sleeping bag - pots at the bottom (outside the pack liner), then throw your sleeping bag/pad in the bottom of this).

XL Zip-loc bags are awesome when it's raining, and you need something from the middle/bottom of your pack: http://www.canadiantire.ca/AST/brows....jsp?locale=enhttp://www.canadiantire.ca/AST/brows....jsp?locale=en - as you pull everything out of your pack, stick it in here to keep it dry. It's handy for the rest of your time at each camp b/c its clear, and you can easily find anything.


Goes without saying, but go overboard with waterproofing your boots (ie. multiple applications) if they have never gotten you through a coastal environment before.



I've done most of my coastal treks in April, and one of my creature comforts was a pair of insulated waterproof gloves (not this exact pair, but similar http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Glove-SB...3772162&sr=1-9

http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Glove-SB...3772162&sr=1-9 Orange colour is also handy if you need to flag down a boat or aircraft , but they are nicest for rinsing dishes in the ocean and keeping hands warm and dry. Probably not much of an issue in the summer.

Also a big fan of gravity fed filters - this guy has been generally good to me http://www.mec.ca/AST/ShopMEC/Hiking...amp-filter.jsphttp://www.mec.ca/AST/ShopMEC/Hiking...amp-filter.jsp . I had used them a lot for big group treks, but I've also used it for solo, and think it's well worth the extra weight.

No big advice for food - I'm often in bigger groups and only have to do a couple meals (also in cooler temps, so some more food is fair game to bring). Hard cheese should keep pretty well. Pita bread and dips/cheese/sausage is nice for lunch. Can't really go wrong with spaghetti. We have a vaccuum sealer, which can be really handy for sealing small portions of dips/sauces so they don't spoil...