WEST COAST TRAIL TRIP!
August 14-21

The trip was AMAZING. And by now, most of you know what the highlight of our trip was...

OUR ENGAGEMENT! (details below)

The trip started out awesome! Dan's parents were in Edmonton visiting from Qualicum Beach (which is on Vancouver Island). So we drove back with them on Saturday early in the morning, and spent the night at their place.

Early Sunday morning, they drove us out to the trail, where we had to take an hour orientation about the West Coast Trail. We started at Port Renfrew and went north all the way towards Bamfield, which goes from most difficult to easier trails. (Honestly, I have no idea how people can start out easier then continue towards the harder end, since feet easily blister after hiking for a few days straight!).


West Coast Trail (someone made that out of rocks, twigs, buoys, and anything else they could find on the beach)

This is a hardcore, backcountry type of hike, in which we took SEVEN days to complete. We must carry all our food, clothes, sleeping gear, etc. They recommended that women's backpacks are a 1/4 of their weight, while men's should be about a 1/3 of their own weight. So I carried about 35lbs (of mostly food!) and Dan carried about 45lbs. Somehow it seems that I had to carry much more weight overall (if we're considering proportion of backpack weight to bodyweight)!

It was such a great time! I got to pig out on my fave foods- PEANUT BUTTER, trail mix, and chocolate - and I still managed to lose most of my lil' love handles! Whoohoo! Teehee. Dan lost about 5lbs and leaned out quite a bit. We hiked for an average of 6-8 hours a day. And yes...our feet did get sore and blistery.