North Coast Trail – day 4

Sept 2012 trip report by site editor Rick McCharles

» day 1 | day 2 | day 3 | day 4 | day 5 | day 6 | day 7 | ★ recommendations ★
Shuttleworth to Nissen Bight

My German friends were first out of Camp. Again.

Often I’m slow to depart, hoping trying to dry my gear before packing up.

A pretty morning.

I crossed the Strandby River cable car with the girls.

Many have painful feet by this point in the adventure. Mine were still OK, lucky since I only wore low cut approach shoes without gaiters.

With all this mud, next time on the NCT I’d wear Water Walking Shoes. Like these Five Ten Canyoneers.

Those worked well for me in Paria Canyon, Virgin Narrows and the West Coast Trail.

Downside?

Risk of puncturing them on a sharp branch or rock.

But aside from the rocks, most everything in this climate is soft, rotting, rounded or blunted.

I found only one thorny plant in a week.

Not much flora can harm you on this trek. There is some Cow Parsnip, which might cause skin irritation.

Unless you know what you’re doing, don’t eat any of the amazing lichen or mushrooms.

The walking gets easier and easier as you go West, as promised. You enjoy more coastal sections, less in the trees.

This was my favourite surface — dried sea weed.

You end up walking many beached logs. As a former gymnast, the balance required doesn’t intimidate. 🙂

I wish they could reroute more muddy sections over fallen logs.

Hard packed sand makes for excellent footing, too. You test each beach to find the best sand.

Personally, I try to stay on the coast, even if the walking’s more difficult. On this section I happened upon some nice tidal pools.

Though the North Coast Trail is more difficult, for some reason I fall more on the West Coast Trail.

WCT (3 times) = average 1 fall to the ground / day
NCT (1 time) = fell only twice over 7 days

… perhaps the sample size is too small. 🙂

Best advice — when you fall, pull in limbs, try to land on your pack. You want the pack to take as much of the impact as possible.

The Germans and I decided to skip Laura Creek. And go all the way to Nissen Bight.

For me that was 9hrs on foot. A long day.

At Nissen the water source is at one end of the beach, 900m away from the pit toilet. … Who’s stupid idea was that?

After traipsing back and forth, I ran out of stove fuel in any case … No hot dinner for me. Sheiss.

I really need to get one of the “twig” stoves.