West Coast Trail Sign Up

In previous post, Where to Start, Where to Start, I went over some stuff on how to narrow down start dates for a hike. We looked at the effect of how long the hike would take, will the weather allow it, required travel arrangements, what happens if you need to extend time on trail, and what happens if you don't get your ideal day. Now that we have gotten our permits here's how it went.

Sign up for permits opened up at 10 am out time. We were hoping to jump onto the portal right at 10 am, but Roslyn had a meeting. So at about 10:20 am Roslyn went online and tried to get our preferred start date. And then tried to get our secondary dates. And then tried to get our tertiary dates. Then Roslyn and I texted back and forth for a bit on dates.

We ended up selecting a start date about 1 month after our preferred date.

Here's some follow up tips we've learned:

1 - Be on time for permit sign ups

We had heard the trail was popular, but were kind of surprised that all the dates between April 1 and the end of August were taken by 10:20ish am on opening day. If the date is really really important to you, make sure to book on a time slot so you can get in to get a permit.

2 - Be flexible

For us, sliding the hike back a month wasn't too big of a deal. We preferred our August start date due to temperature and rainfall, but the September start date we ended up with will still suit our needs. There is traditionally more rainfall so we may have a wetter and muddier experience, but it gives us an extra month to prepare and condition.

3 - Buy as a group

If you are going to go as a group make sure you buy your permits together and then reimburse people. There is pretty much to way two separate people will be able to get in, pick a date, and confirm the other people also registered for the same date. On that note, everyone may want to be together to do the registration so that its easier to get opinions on what dates are acceptable if your in a group of 4+.

With all that in mind, remember that preparing for the trip is supposed to remain part of the fun. Try to have a flexible plan, know what your limits on dates are, and accept the possibility that you may have to wait until the next year if you need a very specific set of dates. Also, make sure you prepare for all types of weather that could show up during your hike. The best way to do this is to plan out your hikes for the summer and then do them regardless of conditions. 

With all that said, have fun planning for the up coming hiking season!

Where to Start, Where to Start

Roslyn and I have decided to complete the West Coast Trail next summer. Its a 75 km long 1508 m of elevation trail that's half way across the country from us. We're going to be showing a bunch of our planning here and occasionally on our youtube channel to help others plan their own long trips.

The first step to any backpacking trip is either deciding what time you have available to go backpacking or what trail you want to go backpacking on. Since Roslyn and I already know what trail we want to do all we have to do is figure out a time to do it! For local overnight or day trip trails this is pretty easy to do, and for longer local trails in the 3-5 day category is becomes a bit more difficult but still not too onerous. Unfortunately for us, the West Coast Trail is half a country away and from what we've read so far takes 6 to 8 days to complete.

Here's a list of what needs to be considered when selecting when to go:

1 - How long will the hike take?
2 - When will the weather permit the hike?
3 - What are travel arrangements like?
4 - What happens if you need to extend the time on trail?
5 - What happens if we don't get a trail permit on our ideal day?

Lets work through each of these one at a time.

1 - How long will the hike take?

The West Coast Trail is 75 km long with 1508 m of elevation gain according to AllTrails. While not mountain climbing, that's still a lot of height changes over that distance. From reading the reviews and talking to a co-worker that has done it, 6-7 days seems to be about average. Roslyn and I are going with 6 days, putting us at a mere 12.5 km per day of travel. That should give us plenty of time to look around, explore, and if something happens like a creek being impassable we will be able to make up the delay.

2 - When will the weather permit the hike?

Since its on the coast, the window of good weather if pretty wide, but we still want it to be warm out. We narrowed our window down to June, July, or August, as that was the time period with a temperature and rainfall amount we found acceptable.

3 - What are travel arrangements like?

We are going to be travelling to BC 3-4 days before our hike starts to visit with Roslyn's sisters. Because of this, we really only need to figure out 4-6 hours of travel to get to the trail head from their place. The only other consideration is that you need to do an orientation session at the trail head, which is only held twice a day. Since the 4-6 hours travel time means we will miss the morning orientation, and we don't want to start the hike a 3:30 we are going to have to arrive the day before we plan on starting the trail.

4 - What happens if we need to extend the time on the trail?

Due to the chance of injury or lots of rain, there is a possibility of having to stay on trail for an extra day or two.Roslyn and I are planning on staying with my dad for a few days after were done the trail, so we can eat into that. If you aren't planning on staying in the vicinity of the trail after you're done, you should give a day or two leeway on your final departure date. Missing planes or other expensive travel costs makes an injury or trail delay even more disappointing.

5 - What happens if we don't get a trail permit on our ideal day?

Given the above information, Roslyn and I picked an ideal start date. But because the passes for the trail are first come first served, we needed to pick a couple of secondary (and tertiary) dates. Since we were staying in the area both before and after our hike, we picked dates in that were right beside our ideal date so that it impacted our overall plans as little as possible.

If you can go through and answer those five questions you will be well on your way to planning a longer backpacking trip. The next steps are to actually figure out our travel itinerary and how were getting around, but before we can do that all of the start-end dates needed to be figured out.

If you have any questions about this, or anything else, let me know!