August 23
Today we’re only hiking about 7 km to Homais Cove, although it’s really hard to say exactly how far we’ll actually hike because of all the wayfinding, zigzagging and backtracking along the trail.
I didn’t sleep that well. Not for any particular reason, but just sleeping in a new place always limits my sleep. There was lightning in the middle of the night that I could see through my tent, but we didn’t hear any thunder so it must have been something offshore. Hot and cold fronts colliding.
I had gotten enough water at the waterfall just before Barcester Bay for the next day as well because we weren’t sure about the water source, but just after Barchester Bay was what looked like a stream, although it didn’t look very good, but just shortly after that, before rounding the point was a blue buoy hanging from a tree marking a water source coming down from a rock that looked pretty good.
The rest of the group hiked through the shallows for most of the day, but I stuck closer to the shore where the land was dryer and a little more flat and easier to hike on because of my ankles. There were many bear poops along the way, almost like cairns. I would imagine bears don’t like hiking through the water because of the many snails and mussels attached to the rocks, which probably doesn’t feel too good on a paw, and the poops were generally on dry and flatter parts of the path. Sometimes it looked like there were paths in the beach grass, but it’s unknown if the paths are from humans or bears, but I’ll follow the bears, because the poop cairns have not led me astray yet.
My pack feels a little bit lighter after eating some of my food, and after today, I feel a bit more confident hiking. My ankle didn’t hurt today, although my feet hurt a bit from the Form insoles which take awhile to break in.
The rocks are so interesting. Naomi said that some of the rocks are basically just smaller rocks that got squished together by pressure over time, and at one point I was looking at a slab of stone that looked like sand and was saying “it looks just like sand but it’s a stone!!” And Alanah was gently like “well yeah that’s sandstone” which now feels silly that I didn’t know that, but I don’t know anything about rocks though.
We camped at Homais Cove and got there around noon. There was a little stream before we reached the cove but the water was pretty dark and stagnant and we held out for the creek that was supposed to be at the cove and that was quite dark and a bit gross as well to be honest. I was glad I had taken some Katahdin water tablets just in case. I think I maybe used them 3 or 4 times on the entire PCT, but decided to double filter my water at the cove. The rest of the group decided to hike back to the previous water source but it didn’t seem worth the hike to me.
Chris later said that he hiked up the creek a ways and it was really pretty – with lots of rocks covered in moss, although the water was still discoloured from that creek as well, so I feel ok about my gross water.
There is a lighthouse that potentially has water tomorrow, so I’m going to hold out hope I won’t have to drink too much of this gross water. I have about 1L left and then treated 2L, and I’ll use the gross water to cook my dinner because then it will be treated with chemicals, filtered and boiled. If anything gets past all of that, maybe it deserves to live in my colon and I just have to respect the craft at that point.
Tomorrow, we are going through a 12km section called Billion Boulder Beach because it’s just a bigass boulder field. I’m a bit worried because I was quite tired yesterday after all the climbing, but my pack will be even lighter, and I’m starting to get my confidence back. I think all of these rocks are helping to strengthen my ankles, and my mind.
Homais Cove has two islands just out in the water that are filled with sea lions. They are constantly barking and we can hear them from shore but they’re difficult to see. I wish I spoke sea lion to understand the neighborhood gossip, and I also hope they quiet down at night while we’re trying to sleep. Alanah had mentioned reading something about how there used to be a village around here of the first nations people and they had spent winters in Homais Cove and summers in Barcester Bay. Homais Cove is more sheltered from the wind, and the sea lions are probably gone that time of year. I would probably relocate away from such loud neighbors too. We saw a totem pole of a man just before Homais Cove, with some kind of sea animal but none of us knew what it meant. We’ll pass Hesquiat Village in 2 days, and we can ask then.
We saw what we thought were wolf prints in the sand, as we were getting to camp but so far no wolf sightings.
There’s a lot of trash and debris on the beach as we have hiked, but none of it looks like it’s from hikers which is nice to see. A lot of it is trash that gets swept in from the sea. And from quite far.
There are things I like about this style of backpacking – I don’t have to get up so early, we aren’t hiking crazy miles, and we can stop and actually enjoy the scenery. But I know I’ll go home to the human world in a few days. I don’t live in my tent anymore, and there’s something about that, that gives me anxiety. I like being out here. Maybe not in this specific location with the bogs of eternal stench and the sea lions barking, but passing through, seeing so many things, being able to go where I want to go carried by my own feet – I do love that.
I keep thinking about the PCT. Would I do it again? Could I do it again?
I think I would.
I think I could.
At dinner, Naomi accepted the trail name Hoggle after her dunk in the bog of eternal stench.
