January 1, 2021
With a year of cancelled races and nowhere to travel to, I wanted to start 2021 with something epic. So I planned out a 50 km loop through the Sooke hills. This took in Sooke Wilderness Regional Park (southern unit), Sea to Sea Regional Park, Sooke Potholes Regional Park, Galloping Goose Regional Trail, Kapoor Regional Park and Sooke Mountain Provincial Park. In all, together they make up an area of well over 10,000 hectares of wilderness park to explore. There are now marked trails, but there are a lot of unmarked trails too. No cell coverage and limited access points makes it a wonderful place to explore.
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| The third crossing of Shephaed Creek on the Secret Trail |
Of course, nature had taken its toll on the trails. Heavy snow a couple weeks earlier and high winds had brought trees down throughout the parks, with the north unit of the Sea to Sea Regional Park being the worst hit. Heavy rains had turned many trails into rivers, made stream crossings some thing to wade through, and turned what was not under water into mud. We were in for a fun day.
Charlene Waldner agreed to run this with me and we set off at 8:30 am on January 1, 2021. Sunset was at 4:20 pm, so we had just under 8 hours of daylight. As usual, we were prepared for the conditions, and we both carried our essential emergency supplies, including reliable headlamps, I had a second emergency light, emergency blankets, whistle, compass, and my Garmin InReach. The InReach is invaluable and allows me to send messages via the satellites, allows people to track us from their phone or computer, and in an emergency allows me to send out an SOS call. It also sends a pin drop with every message so people who may come looking for us will know where we are. The InReach is essential in the Sooke Wilderness as there is mostly no cell coverage, so calling for help on my phone would be useless.
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| The old bridge crossing Ayum Creek (third crossing) |
We set off up Veitch Carriageway (Veitch Trail) (since the park has been officially opened, the Capital Regional District has renamed some trails, but I'm using the original names (with the new name in parentheses)). Mostly runable with some slippery muddy sections, then up Secret Trail (Shepard Creek Trail). A good run to the second stream crossing. Some blow downs but not bad. Third stream crossing was pretty messy.
Then we came to Ayum Creek Trail. This is usually bad at the top and gets better further down. The recent blow downs have made it a nightmare of tree obstacles, and very slow going. Past the second stream crossing it was totally runable. As you can imagine, the streams were high, so the crossing was knee deep.
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| Wonderful run down Charters Trail to Charters River |
I was ahead coming down Ayum Creek Trail and I heard Charlene call out. Turns out her backpack had snagged earlier on a downed tree and it had opened the zipper causing most of the contents to spill out on the trail. We back tracked and about a half kilometre back we found them strewn out on the trail. Her phone was first out and we found that further back. Once we had that sorted, and used a hook on the back of the pack to lock the zippers closed, we continued on our adventure.
We made through the unused trails between Mount Manual Quimper and Mount Thunderbird - very overgrown and a lot of bushwhacking to get through. But that was expected.
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| Opening it up on the Goose Regional Trail - heading to Leechtown at Tod Creek Trestle Bridge. |
Once through we had a beautiful run down Sooke Mountain Trail, KinniKinnick, Charters River Trail and Grasse Lake Trail down to the Charters Trestle Bridge on the Goose Regional Trail. No trees down at all on these trails. Then up the Goose to Sooke Potholes Regional Park and along the Riverside Trail in that park to the north end of the park, then back on the Goose for the fast run to Leechtown (Kapoor Regional Park).
The rain started while we were on the Goose and it got steadily heavier as the day went on. The track on my Fenix 6 was off. I was confused why the river was appearing on my right when it was clearly on my left. I discovered later there was a bug caused by 2020 that affected the GPS chip in my watch causing my track to be offset by a few hundred metres. It has to do with 2020 having 53 weeks so the satellite data was off in some way. It fixed itself by the time we go to Leechtown.
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| Running along side the Sooke River on the Riverside Trail in Sooke Potholes Regional Park. This park was closed the next day for 24 hours because the dam upstream could not hold floodwaters back. |
From Leechtown we followed the Lakes Carriageway. It's not an official trail and at the best of times its an obstacle course. But now it is almost impassable. We spent most of the transit of the Lakes Carriageway figuring out ways to get over, under or around downed trees. The worst were the fir trees, their big wet green branches blocking the way and no way to know what was behind until you pushed through. It was slow going. And with the rain and being unable to run we were unable to generate the heat we'd normally generate by running. So of course we were getting colder. The wet trees made it worse; cold water soaking us every time we had to get over, under or around downed trees.
As we passed Old Man Lake I remembered there's an old cabin in the woods on the other side of the lake. It was too cold and wet to go exploring for it and decided that could wait for another drier sunnier day.
Unexpectedly we came across a runner and his dog on Lakes Carriageway. I was surprised. Other than on the Goose Regional Trail and at Sooke potholes, we had seen no one in the Sooke hills all day. Lakes Carriageway is not well used at all and was the last place I expected to see anybody. He decided to turnaround after we told him the trail conditions further up.
I expected it to get better once we reached the official trails, but no, they were in as bad condition as Lakes Carriageway. At Peden Lake we joined Tod Creek Trail (Empress Mountain Trail). Usually runable, it was a mess and we spent a frustrating long time making our way over the obstacles. By now Charlene was pretty much done and asked how far to the car. I told her we still had about 16 km to go if we go direct, which was the plan mostly anyway. With those trail conditions, 16 km is about three hours.
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| Last bit of civilization before we hit the Lakes Carriageway - information sign, toilets and shelter at Leechtown (Kapoor Regional Park). |
It was getting dark by the time were on the saddle just below the summit of Empress Mountain. We decided not to summit as planned. It looked ominous up there, there would be a cold wind and absolutely no view, so no point going up. Plus coming down we would have been even colder as it is a slow exposed descent. I think we were smart to call it and keep moving.
We stopped to put our lights on as it was getting dark. Charlene had her Gemini Duo, super bright headlamp that has a battery that can go all night. I had my Ultraspire belt lamp that can go for about 6 hours. I like my waist belt as it really illuminates the shadows of small rocks, making it easy to pick my way through technical trails. But it's not good at spotting downed trees, or helping find a way around. As the light does not move with my head, I have to move my waist to see the options. Also, when crouching to go under a tree, the light is blocked and I'm crawling into pitch blackness.
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| Old Man Lake - along the Lakes Carriageway |
I heard a ping from the InReach, indicating somebody was sending me a message. I'd left the route plan with friends, so I suspected one was checking in on us as, if they were watching the track, would see we were way behind the planned schedule. I didn't want to stop to check it and just kept going. They knew that if we need help we will activate the SOS or send a help text message out. And thanks Lisa Fehr for checking in on us, it was appreciated.
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| Remnants of the snow storm on Lakes Carriageway |
Just before Crabapple Lake we came to a choice of routes - east side or west side of the lake. I chose the east, and think I'd made the wrong decision. Distance wise it's similar. But the trail condition did not improve. Even when we hit the top of Sooke Mountain Parkway - a wide old abandoned service road, we were still fighting downed trees. The old road was unrecognizable. In all the years I've run in those hills, I've never seen anything like it. It was the same story on The Cut and on the Cory Connector, which brought us back to top of Ayum Creek Trail. From here it was a nice run down the John Hasell Trail (Veitch Trail) and the Veitch Carriageway back to the car.
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| The trail is the river - Tod Creek Trail heading up to Empress Mountain |
With the sun well set by now, I was in my "ultra" mode. I was ignoring conditions and focused on just keeping moving forward. Just keep going until we're at the finish line. By now it felt like I was running an ultra. Dark night, rain, cold - nothing out there but the two of us and whatever was living in the forests around us.
It took us just under 11 hours to run (travel) the 53 km loop. It took about 4 hours, 50 minutes to travel the 19 km from Leechtown to the top of the Secret Trail, when it should have taken 3 hours, 15 min. Overall it took 2 hours longer than planned.
Overall not the run I had planned, but certainly an epic, if wet, New Years Day adventure.
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| Not what you want when going for a run. I dreamed of climbing over downed trees that night. |
Thanks to Charlene for doing this crazy run with me. I don't think she'll let me lead her on any more winter runs - she pulled through though drenched, cold and likely miserable at times. And thanks to Lisa for checking in on us and offering to help if we needed it.
