SPRING ADVENTURE

National Hiking Trail slowly forging its way

Parker asserted that private land
owned by logging companies
west of Cowichan Lake and south
of the Strathcona Damis the
biggest obstacle facing VISTA. He
added that First Nations must also
be consulted, and hes hoping they
will become trail partners.
Joking that his PCT experiences
were a little less exciting than those
depicted in Wild, Parker noted that
long-distance hikers must arrange
to pick up food along the route and
focus on tasks like finding water. But,
unlike mountaineering in the Himalayas, almost anyone can take on
this challenge, according to him.
Youre only in touch with civilization, I guess youd call it, every few
days, Parker said. Youre totally selfsufficient. Youre carrying everything
you need, and you dont have to think
about connections to the Internet. You
dont have to think about your work, if
youre still working. I find that you are
really able to connect with what you
feel is worthwhile in life.

> B Y STEPHEN H U I

ild author Cheryl

Strayedportrayed by
Reese Witherspoon in
the 2014 movie of the
same namefamously found herself
covered with frogs, strapping sandals
to her feet with duct tape, and having
sex on a beach while trekking on the
Pacific Crest Trail in 1995.
The following year, Brad Vaillancourt thru-hiked the PCTwhich
spans 4,265 kilometres in California, Oregon, and Washington from
the Mexican to the Canadian borderin five months.
I think it just instilled that passion for the wild: for going out there
and experiencing it firsthand, Vaillancourt told the Georgia Straight
by phone from his Vancouver office.
I definitely now balance my urban
life with taking significant time to
go out and do adventures in the wilderness. Putting yourself in that raw,
basic form of human existence really
is rewarding, and its something I
think everyone should experience.
These days, Vaillancourt serves
as the president of the Great Divide
Trail Association. Thats the nonprofit
behind a 1,200-kilometre trail in the
making (the Great Divide Trail, or
GDT) in the Rocky Mountains along
the British ColumbiaAlberta border.
Vaillancourt is one of a handful
of B.C. outdoor adventurers who
inspired by their experiences on the
PCTare spearheading volunteer
efforts to build long-distance trails
that take weeks or months to hike
from end to end. He believes that
the success of the film adaptation of
Wild has magnified peoples interest
in trails like the PCT and the GDT.
Patrick Harrison, a University of
the Fraser Valley biology instructor,
also saw the movie. (There werent
enough hiking scenes, he remarked.)
The Surrey resident section-hiked
the Washington portion of the PCT
during four summers in the 1980s.
I loved it, Harrison told the
Straight by phone from UFVs Abbotsford campus. It was a wonderful
event. You get up in the morning, put
your pack on, and just hike along and
enjoy the world. Its a very different
experience than our day-to-day rush
that we normally have in life.
As the president of Hike Canada and Hike B.C., Harrison coordinates work on the National
Hiking Trail. The NHT, linking
existing single-track and heritage
footpaths, will stretch 10,000 kilometres, from Port Alberni, B.C., to
St. Johns, Newfoundland, and take
about a year to thru-hike.

The National Hiking Trail, which is only 30 to 50 percent complete, will link footpaths across Canada. Stephen Hui photo.

Although the first marker went up

on Parliament Hill in Ottawa back in
1987, Harrison estimates the crosscountry trail is still only 30 to 50 percent complete. The slow progress of the
NHTa project revitalized in recent
yearshas been overshadowed by the
success of the multi-use Trans Canada
Trail, a network of routes devoted to
cross-country skiing, cycling, horseback riding, paddling, snowmobiling,
and walking.
Theirs tends to be a wider, more
community-based trail, Harrison
said of the TCT. They rely heavily on going through communities,
which is not a bad plan. Youre going to get monetary support that
way. Weve always viewed ours as a
hiking trail.
In B.C., the proposed route of the
NHT heads up Vancouver Island
from Port Alberni to Comox, where
hikers would hop a ferry to Powell
River on the mainland. Next, the
route merges with the Sunshine
Coast and Suncoaster trails on the
way to the LangdaleHorseshoe
Bay ferry crossing. From West Vancouver, plans call for the NHT to
follow the Howe Sound Crest Trail
in Cypress Provincial Park and the
Sea to Sky Trail from Squamish to
DArcy, head northwest across the
Chilcotin region, enter Tweedsmuir Provincial Park, turn east on
the Alexander Mackenzie Heritage

Trail, and end up in Jasper National

Park in Alberta.
As well, a spur of the NHT would
connect the cross-country route
with the PCT where it ends, at E.C.
Manning Provincial Park. From the
North Shore, this branch would traverse Vancouver, Richmond, Delta,
Surrey, White Rock, and Langley
and incorporate the remnants of the
Centennial Trail between the Fraser
Valley and Manning Park.
Harrison said hes waiting on
the City of Vancouver to approve
the designation of forest trails
in Stanley Park and a portion of
the seawall along False Creek as
part of the NHT. Metro Vancouver has already sanctioned the
use of the Dyke Trail in Boundary Bay Regional Park and the
Baden-Powell, Capilano Pacific,
and Shinglebolt trails in Capilano
River Regional Park. On February
19, Metros regional parks committee endorsed NHT designation
for trails in Campbell Valley and
Aldergrove regional parks.
NEAR PORT ALBERNI, the National Hiking Trail will share the
Alberni Valley Log Train Trail
with another long-distance route
in the works. The Vancouver Island
Spine Trail will run 700 kilometres
from Victoria to Cape Scott, taking
a month or more to thru-hike.

In 2007, Gil Parker, founder and

president of the Vancouver Island
Spine Trail Association, was hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail west
of Mount Shasta in California when
he came up with the idea. (Over
six summers, Parker section-hiked
most of the PCT.) He formed VISTA
the following year.
Parker told the Straight the VI
Spine is about 40 percent complete
and could be finished as soon as
2019. VISTA hopes to blaze 200 more
kilometres of trail over the next two
summers on the northern part of the
Island. This involves connecting existing trails and logging roads.
Between Victoria and Lake Cowichan, the VI Spine will share a route
with the Trans Canada Trail. It will
follow the Cowichan Valley Trail
over the historic Kinsol Trestle, then
take an old rail corridor to Port Alberni. North of the Log Train Trail,
the VI Spine will go over the Beaufort Range and cross the Forbidden
Plateau in Strathcona Provincial
Park. At the northern tip of the Island, it will join the North Coast
Trail in Cape Scott Provincial Park.
This is not going to be a manicured trail to start with, Parker
said by phone from his Victoria
office. It will eventually improve.
But itll be a challenge, because
its going to be more of a line cut
through the trees and marked.

LIKE THE Pacific Crest Trail, the

Continental Divide Trail is one of 11
congressionally designated national
scenic trails in the United States. The
CDT extends 5,000 kilometres
across five statesbetween the Mexican and Canadian borders.
Just over the Canadian border
from where the CDT ends in Montana, the Great Divide Trail starts
its journey from Waterton Lakes
National Park to Kakwa Provincial
Park, crossing the B.C.Alberta border 30 times. The Great Divide Trail
Association, formed in 1975 to build
the GDT, fell dormant in the late
1980s but was revived in 2013.
The GDTAs Vaillancourt estimates
three-quarters of the GDT is now in
place, though its not signed as such in
national and provincial parks, whose
trails compose 60 percent of the route.
He hopes to see 90 percent of the trail
complete in five years.
B.C. and Alberta are resourceextraction-based provinces, and
Crown land is used for mining and
logging and oil, Vaillancourt said.
When your trail passes through
areas like that, if it doesnt have
permanent protected status, you
risk losing sections of trail year to
year. Were getting close, though.
The GDT passes through Banff,
Kootenay, Yoho, and Jasper national parks. Vaillancourt said a
thru-hike takes about two months,
currently involves off-trail walking and following gravel roads and
all-terrain-vehicle tracks (back
country-navigation skills are a must),
see next page

MARCH 5 12 / 2015 THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 13