Nootka Trail Hiking Adventure

The Nookta Sound Trail lived up to it’s billing in all respects, it was a pristine wilderness and moderately challenging. (although not the arduous bushwhack some people have claimed!)

It was May 2003, Sam and Cathy said “Do you guys wanna to do the Nookta Sound Trail?” and we all said “Sure”.  We took a few group conditioning hikes in Garibaldi Park BC and Mount Baker WA and Sam sorted out the travel arrangements for the floatplane and ferries. At the end of August we were off to the island….Yeehaaa!

Day 1 - Louie Lagoon to 3rd Beach (1 hour)

The six intrepid Vancouver hikers consisting of 3 Canucks, 2 Brits and an Aussie drove to Gold River on Vancouver Island to get the Air Nookta floatplane to the trailhead. I had already foolishly proclaimed myself as the “Navigator”, both on and off the trail, and managed to get us lost on the drive across Vancouver Island ! A seemingly impossible accomplishment as there was only one wrong turn to take - we took it!   After ending up at a mining camp Kim said “Are you sure this is the right way Honey?” with crumbling confidence I said “Urrrrr”. We finally arrived an hour later than the rest of the gang. In true BC fashion it was lashing down, the only day of rain in weeks. The Air Nookta staff took time to explain some trail etiquette such as “how to sh*t in the woods”! We had a beautiful flight over the trail to familiarize ourselves with the coastline and then landed in Louie lagoon in driving rain. We had to wear Teva style sandals for this drop off in 50cm of water. We watched the plane take off and leave us in the middle of a scene from Indiana Jones. I think I heard a few mental “Uh-Ohs” but no-one said anything. After donning rain-gear and boots we bushwhacked through to 3rd beach, which although only about 1Km away took the best part of an hour due to a really rough trail. (for rough you can read non-existent) I thought "if this represents the trail as a whole it is going to be hard slog" but it turned out to be the toughest part of the entire trip. We even had to put our sandals back on to ford a rain-swollen stream. Eventually we broke through to 3rd beach and it was a beauty - sandy with huge surf. The rain was now stopping and the screaming Pacific winds soon dried our stuff and, apart from a couple of showers, it would now be sunny for the entire trip. There was a good permanent fresh water source here, but not much driftwood of size suitable for fires. (all other potential campsites on the trail appeared to have lots of wood) After a hot dinner we sank as much of the spirits we had brought as possible and then hit the sack.

Ready to go, in the famous west coast rain, with the usual suspects – Sam, Cathy, Chris, Suse, Paul and Kim

Sam and Chris send the floatplane back to civilization

Stormy 3^rd beach

Day 2 - 3rd Beach to Skuna Bay (5 hours)

With the weather vastly improved we headed up into the rainforest to pass the difficult headland section south of 3rd beach. The forest access was by a fixed rope up a headland and was a tricky start to a long day of hiking. The forest was slow going involving lots of scrambling over and under obstacles. Tons of fun in the mud. The trail is well boot-bashed and flagged, so following it proved to be no problem and bushwhacking was not necessary. Someone had suggested we bring a machete and this would have been way over-the-top. The untouched rainforests on the trail were stunningly beautiful and we had an awesome to hike through. They also have a large black bear population and there were huge purple berry filled bear-piles at every turn. This is one hike where bear-spray and bear-bangers are a must. We made plenty of noise throughout the brush travels and never bumped into a bear on the forest trail……thankfully. After a couple of hours in the forest we emerged onto the beach and had a gorgeous beach hike to Skuna Bay . There was a mixture of sand, shingle and tidal shelf to walk on and made for a fun hike. On reaching Skuna Bay we decided to make camp, short of Calvin Falls which was the original plan, as some of the group had had enough for the day (me included!). This is a large sandy bay with a small stream, but few with camping spots. We set about flattening areas within the large log piles to camp. Here Chris’ small collapsible military spade proved invaluable for prepping tent pads. I was very dubious of its worth, but it turned out to be the essential item on the hike - a coastal ice-axe in fact!

Kim has a big start to the day at 3^rd beach headland

Chris and Suse take on the rainforest - this photo looks back along the “trail”!

Race against the surf

On to the beaches - Suse, Cathy, Chris and Sam

Evening arrival at Skuna Bay

West coast beach cast

Sunset at Skuna Bay

Day 3 - Skuna Bay to Unnamed Beach (near Beano Creek) (5 hrs)

After a hazy and misty start to the day, which occurs regularly on the west coast, we headed out in sunshine……From Skuna Bay it was only 45 minutes of tidal shelf hiking to reach the awesome sand beach at Calvin Falls. With the sun blazing we changed into sandals to ford Calvin Creek and then into bathers for the falls and plunge pool. This was the most beautiful sand beach on the trip, the falls are great and the wide sandy beach amazing for ocean swimming. It is the premier camping spot on the entire trail and if you have the time to take a rest day on your trek, take it here. It is, however, the busiest spot on the trail with surfers and paddlers to add to the backpackers. There is a fixed rope allowing you to climb up the falls which is great fun. We had lunch and a few swims before continuing south……..After a few hours of shingle beach walking we came to Bajo point, an awesome seascape that allegedly has a sea otter colony. Apparently, they have been reintroduced from Alaska and are doing well. Today though, they were distinctly camera shy and as we couldn’t see any we moved on. After another 2km I was in front of the group by about 200m and looked up to see a large animal much further up the beach. I have never had the privilege to see a bear while hiking, you know how you see them from the car window, but it was a beautiful black bear.   It was obviously busy with some bear business and didn’t see me. I knew everyone wanted to see a one so I turned back and started waving and beckoning the group on. We all got together and walked slowly up the beach. The bear did not seem to be to bothered by our presence, and this was a concern so we got out the bear-spray and bangers. At 50m away we could see it was a juvenile maybe 3 or 4 years old. It then jumped up on a log to check is out, as we were a big group it sensed trouble and bounded into the brush.   You read about how fast bears can move but it wasn’t until I saw it clear the beach in two strides that it hit home - yeah, you really can’t outrun these things! We passed and he was soon back out on the beach feeding! About 1 km further on we came to a lovely beach that had a freshwater source and Sam took the executive decision to camp here instead of Beano Creek. We had an excellent long evening in the on the beach, facing directly west we watched the sun set into the ocean. Everyone agreed that this was our most scenic camp on the trip and in true explorer style we named this newly discovered campsite “Turtle Beach ”.

Misty sunrise at Skuna Bay

Easy hiking on the tidal shelf

Coastal hiking doesn’t get any simpler than this sidewalk

One of many fresh water run outs on to the beaches

Start of beach at Calvin falls

Fording Calvin Creek , the water was moving!

Calvin Falls

Top of the falls

Leaving Calvin Falls

There’s a bear about somewhere………

….there he is !

Sunset at “ Turtle Beach ”

Day 4 - “Turtle” Beach (near Beano Creek) to Unnamed Beach
(4 hours)

I woke up to find a steaming pile of purple bear crap no more than 2 feet from where I had been sleeping….I can only assume that my snoring had put him off coming into our tent! I guess it was our friend from the beach, but we’ll never know. After another hit of Chris’ dangerously strong camp coffee, we headed down a long shingle beach to Beano Creek. The creek was thigh deep as the tide was approaching and again the Tevas came out. After crossing the creek we walked the length of the beach in the rolling surf line. I was horrified to see several "PRIVTE: KEEP OUT" type-signs posted in the tree line here, and it really distracted from an otherwise beautiful beach. Areas of forest have been sold and logged to pay for holiday cabins - you just can’t take humans anywhere with out them staking a claim! At the end of the beach a fixed rope enables you to get up on the headland to continue. This is the scrambling photo-op of the entire trip and essential to all hiker’s albums. South of Beano Creek the hiking is generally inland through the rainforest until you get within a couple of Km of Yuquot. We passed Callicum Creek which is the final dependable water source and made sure to collect plenty of water here. There is no other guaranteed water sources until the end of the trail, we found however, the 3 small streams shown on the Topo map were fine. Four hours of hiking had brought us to a pocket beach with a good fresh water source…..it was completely ours and we set about celebrating Suse’s birthday with Champagne that Chris had lugged this far. It was cooled in the stream and gratefully received by all. Chris was glad he did not have to carry the three bottles any further!

Time for the bathers at Beano Creek crossing

Fixed rope aids headland access at Beano Creek beach

Time for a snack

Chris and Sam find unused Nike sneaker - probably 1 of 20000 lost from container ship

Paul takes GPS coordinates - making navigation way too easy!

Campsite at pocket beach, time for the champagne.

Day 5 - Unnamed Beach to Unnamed Beach (near Tidal Lagoon)
(4 hours)

This section is predominantly forest walking with some bog-trotting thrown in for good measure. The bog areas contained mainly stunted “bonsai” cedars and were a stark contrast to the giant cedars of the rainforest. There was a lot of constant up and down over headlands and onto pocket beaches making for interesting and challenging hiking.   We camped just short of Tidal Lagoon and enjoyed the final night on the trail with an ocean swim and a big feed. This beach had the only "fresh" water in the area, and it turned out to be a brown smelly stream pouring out from the forest deadfall. It was just about drinkable after treatment, although soily tasting would be the understatement of the year.

Suse and Cathy go over the headlands

Seascape from headlands

One of many pocket beaches

Nookta’s own “Hole-in-the-wall”

Cathy and Kim battle with pebbles

Sitka spruce defies gravity

Final Campsite- beach before Tidal Lagoon

Day 6 - Unnamed Beach (near Tidal Lagoon) to Yuquot (1 hour)

The final day of hiking was short and sweet. Tevas were again required to cross the inlet to the lagoon (although we didn’t use them and got soggy boots!). The lagoon water is, of course, marine so if you camp here you may have to backtrack to freshwater sources. After an hour of wide shingle bay hiking we made it toclass=GramE>Yuquot . Here a member of the Yuquot First Nation requested $40 per person to pass his land to the ferry, a princely sum, but hard to argue with as we had not used cash for five nights and it had magically lost its value. We boarded the quaint ferry MV Uchuck III back to Gold River (2 hour trip), the ferry docks right next to Air Nookta and after letting them know we were back the journey home began.

Starfish colony

Getting the ferry back to Gold River

If you plan to take on the Nookta Sound Trail:

• This trek really is for experienced backpackers only.
• A great information source is i-needtoknow.com.
• The forest trail is well flagged, but I found that the Nookta 92 E/10 Topo map was essential.
• GPS was also helpful in conjunction with the Topo map, but in no way mandatory for the trip.
• Extra costs over regular backpacks - return ferry to Vancouver Island ($100), Air Nookta flight ($120 - based on 6 people in 8 person plane), Ferry from Yuquot to Gold River ($30), Yuquot landing fee ($40)