Day #8:Homeward Bound!

There is nothing unique about getting up and leaving except the time we actually break camp and leave. This morning the women head out at 10:00.  It is a warm, dry, sunny day.

 My feet are covered with blisters and I spend 15 minutes patching up my feet with Shacklee Baby Diaper Rash Cream (Zinc Oxide, Caster seed oil, beeswax, oat kernel oil, olive oil, safflower seed oil, silica, aloe, chamomilia recutita extract, etc.), bandaids and moleskin.  Sounds funny, I know, but it works for me.  I have a huge blister on the base of my right big toe where the skin was torn away along the heel, and the side of my right foot.  Moleskin acts quite well to protect what is. I am in a lot of pain and Brian dole me out a time-release Iboprofen on Thursday morning, and also this morning.  I'm generally pretty stoic
and resistant to using meds of this kind, but, you know, when the going gets tough, sometimes the tough give in and take the pain killers that are available.

 The path has a few rough sections, but there are no steep up-and-down climbs. The closer we get to the parking lot, the easier it becomes. Brian and I talk about how good it feesl to have completed this Trail-- this is really IT, a short hike to the parking lot. We are relieved and elated. With my painful feet I am still a little slow.

About a kilometer from the parking lot, the Trail splits, one path leads to San Joseph Bay and the other one East to the parking lot (Cape Scott Trail Head).  As we near the junction we meet up with hordes of people on day trips or weekend junkets.  There is a group of young boys that are possibly Scouts on a weekend camp-out to Cape Scott.  When I turn left at the Junction I encounter people just sauntering along on a leisurely day's walk to San Joseph Bay.

I meet my first visible Park Ranger around here, a young woman in her early 20s.  She ask me where I have hiked.  When I tell her the North Coast Trail, she exclaims, "Oh wow!" and when I added that I was 64, she seems quite impressed and we have a nice convo.

We all converge in the parking lot by noon. I am surprised to see how full the lot is-- there are maybe a hundred vehicles here.

While we wait, we sit down in a wooden shelter.  The first thing I do is take off my hiking boots off and dig my runners out of my backpack and slip into them-- nothing like the comfort of old shoes!  This is the last time I will wear these hiking boots-- they are really sturdy and mostly water-proof.  One thing I learned is there is water-proof and then there is WATER-PROOF.   One way to test for water-proofing is to put your boots in a bucket of water for a few hours, and if the water doesn't soak up, they are water-proof.  I had bought a silicone treatment for the one boot that did leak (I treated both), however, the first day I sunk up above my boots, and even with gators, water slooshed around inside.  I had wet feet for the first few days of the trip.

The shuttle bus arrives about twenty minutes after we had get to the parking lot. Nobody disembarks so we assume no one else is starting on the hike from this end of the Trail.  We met some folks on the Trail who had chosen to do that, but generally people start with the more challenging beginning, as we did.

The driver snaps pictures of Brian and I with Brian's camera.  He hands us forms to fill out while we are driving.

45 minutes drive down a dusty logging road we arrive in Holberg, a village of about 300 people employed-- or connected to someone employed-- by the logging industry.  We pull up to an old wood-frame building overlooking the Inlet.  This is the famous Scarlet Ibis Pub and Restaurant.  We are excited to be here, finally having the first restaurant meal in over a week.  The four of us have the fish and chip special, a treat after roughing it for these 8 days in the wilderness.  Three pieces of deep-fried fish and I suck back a Heineken dark non-alcoholic beer.  What can I say?  I am from a German background, so even if I don't drink anymore, the non-alcoholic brew has the same effect of relaxing me and quenching my thirst.  I'm well beyond the novelty though-- at one time our younger son exclaimed, "Hey, Dad, you're drinking so many of those, if you don't watch out you'll be a non-alcoholic!"  The other three had real brews.

In the restaurant John, the shuttle driver, passes around "experience" forms for us to fill out.  Some of the questions were: "what was the highlight of your hike?" "where are you from?" etc.  He has taken our pictures in the parking lot and will put the printed photos in the Memory Book.  We have the opportunity to read about other people's reflections and comments about the hike, and look at their post-Trail photos.  There are about a hundred photos in the book.  About 500 people a year complete the trail. In comparison, about 6000 people a year complete the West Coast Trail.

We spend around an hour and a half in the restaurant, enjoying the ambience, conversations with other diners, and of course, food. About five minutes down the road in the bus the driver indicates an overgrown trail running through the trees to the left that he explains was the start of a half-finished access route to the Danish settlement over a hundred years ago.  Most of the Danes moved to Port Hardy, booming at that time, when their long-term plans for settlement and prosperity didn't work out.

About half-way between Holberg and Port Hardy we stop at the Boot Tree.  Tradition is that you hang your used hiking boots over the tree's branches.  Brian and I leave our damaged walking sticks there as well.

When we arrive back at Port Hardy it's around 4 pm, about an hour-and-a-half drive from the Cape Scott Trail Head parking lot.  We trail over to the marina and plug in some coins for a shower.  This is our first hot-water shower in eight days-- back to Civilization!

We pull into our driveway about 8pm.  Fittingly, my Sabbath has begun.
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Anything mentioned in this blog that is of a "health or medical nature" is the opinion and/or experience of the blogger and not an endorsement or a cure. Please see your trusted health professional.