About a month ago I made the ambitious plans to take my family to hike part of the Juan de Fuca trail. I knew I wanted to spend Mothers' Day with my family in the wild. I read a lot of blogs, talked with friends who have done the trail, read recent experiences on AllTrails; I felt prepared. We have hiked in to camp before but haven't truly backpacked with our children. I put a lot of time and effort into making our packs light as possible but making sure we would be warm, dry and most importantly not run out of snacks.
F carried a Deuter Climber 22L pack and A carried a MEC Escapade Youth 32L pack. Finding good sized and appropriate fitting packs for my children was a challenge. I think there is a lack of good fitting backpacking packs for children under 16. Nevertheless, I managed to fit their clothing, sleeping bags, mugs, water bottles, headlamps and snacks in their own packs. They each had a hiking pole as well to help with the muddy conditions.
The Juan de Fuca is well known for it's muddy conditions. That side of the island is wet, windy and unpredictable. We were pleasantly surprised however by a clear and sunny day for our arrival at Sombrio Beach. We parked at Sombrio West and hiked the 1.8kms over to Sombrio East for a night on the beach.
Sombrio itself is a beautiful spot. Tricky terrain as you are walking over basketball sized rocks and washed up kelp but there is a lot of beauty to distract you. We found plenty of sea urchins both alive and deceased, starfish, lipets, slugs, bald eagles, seals, cormorants and even a hummingbird.
By far my favourite part of the trip was the Hidden Waterfall. It's easy to miss (hence the "hidden" part) but well worth the visit. You follow a small stream up from the beach to a sandstone cave of sorts. The stream is lined with ferns and salmon berry and is lush and green. You can feel the cool mist of the falls before you can actually see them. I think it might be as close to magic as I have ever seen on Earth. I stood by myself in the mist at the base and grounded myself in that place. I could feel it healing my tired soul.
We watched the sun set and even enjoyed the warmth of a rather smokey fire. We made sure our tent was above the tide line and our food was safely in the bear cache and curled up in our awesome family backpacking tent for the night. I thought the waves would be a soothing way to fall asleep but even with ear plugs it was more like a constant roar. Sleep was rather elusive that night which made for an even more difficult second day. Day 2 in the next post.
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