SUMMER2016
MOUNTAINLIFE
83
words Mikey Nixon :: illustration Dave Barnes
Young, dumb, surfboards underarm. We’d been
advised by the drunk loggers at the local pub
that walking into the beach at night was a very
bad idea. “Not without cork boots and high-
powered flashlights!” they cackled.
Of course, we dismissed their warnings as
tourist fear-mongering, another rant induced
by a few toomany Lucky Lagers with the boys.
The beach was only 1.8 kilometres from the
trailhead and we each had a headlamp. How
hard could it be?
But, on the northern tip of Vancouver Island
in a stand of rainforest and coastline routinely
battered by hurricane-force winds, the answer
to that question can range anywhere from
“really hard” to “borderline impossible.” And
this became painfully obvious within the first
few steps of our journey.
We were a group of four humans and one
geriatric dog, Chips, and about five minutes
into the mission (aside from the seven hours
that it had taken us to drive from Victoria), the
words of those drunken loggers began to echo
through the hollow space of naivety between
our ears. Headlamps doing little to penetrate
the thick forest night, we shimmied our way
along rain-slicked logs that made natural
bridges over stands of stinky swamp water.
Welcome to the jungle, baby; at least Canada’s
version of it.
During the rare moments where we found
ourselves on solid ground, the earth itself
would shake from the huge surf crashing
somewhere beyond the darkness. We’d feel it
in the soles of our feet first, but the vibrations
would soon move up and into our chests, as
if we were human tuning forks struck by the
power of the North Pacific seas. But at least we
knewwhere the ocean was, right? And we were
getting closer... we had to be getting closer.
Or maybe not. We pressed forward, but only
after accepting the possible futility of our
mission and agreeing that we’d find somewhere
to camp if the going got too tough. Then the
going
got
too tough, andmuch of what made
it so tough also translated into there being
absolutely nowhere to camp. Nervousness
began to spread amongst the crew, a feeling
that intensified when something not-so-funny
happened: my headlamp died. Then Rene’s
died a fewminutes later. Then Julie’s and
Luigi’s. Straight out of the script of a crappy
horror movie, all four of our headlamps gone in
the course of 45 minutes.
So therewewere, a chain of four humans and a
13-year-old terrier, shuffling forward through the
Coastal Canadian jungle—two steps at a time into
the fleeting illumination of awell used BIC lighter.
There wasmuch talk of “all being lost” (and
other dramatic platitudes) as we soldiered on
blindly with Chips positioned at the back of
the line as a sacrificial offering to the local
cougars, bears andwolves. After another hour
of increasing dread andminimal progress, we
eventually bumped into a downed Sitka spruce
that was wide enough to accommodate our
tents. It was elevated and safe from themud
and the rest of the deadfall, sowithout much
discussion (or the benefit of light), we set up a
couple of two-person tents along the span of the
fallen piece of old growth and called it a night.
We
called it a night, but the
forest
did not
and our sleep was fitful, for all the cracking
of branches and occasional bouts of heavy
breathing lurking in the dark between the
crashing of the surf. Eventually day broke
and our eyes were able to behold the forest
that had seemed ready to eat us whole the
night before. In the canopy-filtered daylight,
a formidable mix of hemlock, cedar and Sitka
crisscrossed their way through various stages
of life.
After a quick snack, we set off towards the
pounding sounds of the beach and finally
reached the Shangri-La that had led us to shirk
responsible decisions and walk blindly into
the night. She was glorious: a two-kilometre
expanse of beach break that boasted four-
metre-plus closeout waves that seemed ready
to break our boards and spines within five
minutes of paddling out. Oh well, what’s a
good surf mission without the realization that
you’re completely unqualified for the waves you
tried so desperately to find? Instead, we sat on
the beach andmind surfed the bone crushers,
knowing we were a little too far from home to
take them on.
I’ve always said that surfing can ruin a beautiful
beach, like when the water doesn’t meet your
expectations and you fail to appreciate what’s
in front of your eyes. But that wasn’t the case
here. We were perfectly happy to sit on the
beach in the middle of absolutely nowhere and
save our limbs for the 1.8-kilometre beat-down
that would take us back to the car.
When does the sun go down again?
MUSTENJOYLONGWALKS
IN THEWOODS
NOCTURNALNAVIGATIONSANDTHESUBTLEARTOFREALIZINGYOU’RETOTALLYSCREWED
