Fifty Shades of Bear Scat 

Port Renfrew to Nitinat 

The riders started Day Three in light rain. 

By then, light rain barely registered. 

Wet had become normal. 

Damp shoes. 

Damp gloves. 

Damp everything. 

The kind of damp that follows riders into the tent, into the sleeping bag, and into the next morning. 

Lisa and Monica left first again. 

Forty-five minutes. 

Maybe an hour. 

Enough time to settle into their rhythm before Kim, Jonny, and Dave rolled out behind them. 

The group was tired. 

Under-slept. 

Still damp. 

But getting used to it. 

Or at least pretending to. 

They knew the day would be tough. 

The map told them that much. 

Only 60 kilometres. 

But 1,400 metres of climbing. 

Short days on paper can be dangerous. 

They sound manageable. 

Then they become the hardest ride anyone has ever done. 

This was one of those days. 

The group had hoped to stop and see Lonely Doug. 

One of the famous giants of Vancouver Island. 

A single Douglas fir left standing in a clearcut. 

A landmark. 

A survivor. 

A reason to pause. 

But Lisa and Monica had already made the trip in to visit the tree, and the day ahead was already pressing on everyone. 

So the riders kept rolling. 

There were grades waiting. 

Real grades. 

Up to 23.5 percent. 

The kind that make loaded bikes feel impossible. 

The kind that turn riding into walking without any real discussion. 

At a certain point, pride becomes less useful than traction. 

So they pushed when they had to. 

Climbed when they could. 

Remounted when the road allowed. 

And kept aiming themselves toward Nitinat, where the group had made one very good decision before the trip even began. 

A motel room. 

After days in the rain, it no longer felt like a splurge. 

It felt like survival. 

Then the route turned. 

Into nothing. 

At least that is what it looked like. 

No road. 

No clear track. 

Just forest. 

A decommissioned logging road. 

On the map, it was a line. 

In front of the riders, it was a bulldozed pile of earth, branches, rocks, and bad intentions. 

They stopped. 

Looked at the route. 

Looked at the forest. 

Looked at each other. 

Then started lifting bikes. 

Loaded bikes are awkward at the best of times. 

Loaded bikes over a bulldozed pile at the entrance to an abandoned logging road are something else entirely. 

The riders scrambled up and over. 

Passed bikes. 

Dragged wheels. 

Stepped carefully. 

Then found what could generously be called a trail. 

Barely rideable in places. 

Not rideable in others. 

The kind of route that makes a person wonder who first looked at it and thought, yes, bikes. 

After a few hundred metres, it opened into doubletrack. 

That should have been good news. 

And it was. 

Mostly. 

Except for the bear scat. 

So much bear scat. 

More than any of them had ever seen. 

Fresh. 

Old. 

Everywhere. 

Whatever bear owned that stretch of road needed to see a vet. 

The bear spray stayed close. 

Again, the Swagman Dusty Feedbags proved to be the perfect place for it. 

Right there on the bars. 

Visible. 

Reachable. 

Reassuring. 

But the harder problem was the cold. 

Technical riding does not always let riders work hard. 

Walking does not always generate enough heat. 

Stopping to lift bikes over obstacles steals warmth quickly. 

The group wanted to ride harder. 

At times, they could not. 

The trail simply would not allow it. 

Kim started showing signs that worried the group. 

Too cold. 

Not warming back up. 

The early edge of hypothermia. 

That changed everything. 

Out there, those moments are not debated. 

Action comes first. 

The group got Kim stopped. 

Got dry clothes out. 

And thanks to the 17-litre Stowaway Saddle Bag she was carrying, there were options. 

A lot of options. 

Dry layers matter. 

Space matters. 

Having the right gear in the right place matters. 

Once Kim changed, the group kept moving. 

Thankfully, the route began to climb again. 

This time on smoother roads. 

For once, climbing felt like a gift. 

A chance to work. 

A chance to build heat. 

A chance to bring body temperature back to where it belonged. 

The riders pushed the pace when the road allowed. 

Not for speed. 

For warmth. 

For safety. 

For the simple need to keep functioning. 

Then came the descent into Nitinat. 

Long. 

Cold. 

And cruel in the way descents can be when riders are already soaked. 

Normally, a descent is the reward. 

That day, it was another test. 

Dave started freezing on the way down. 

Hands. 

Arms. 

Core. 

The kind of cold that makes braking feel clumsy and decision-making feel slower. 

All the riders wanted was the motel. 

A room. 

A shower. 

Heat. 

They rolled into Nitinat and went straight there. 

Only to find out they had to double back a few kilometres to the campsite office on the edge of town to check in. 

Of course they did. 

Another twenty minutes on the bike. 

Another twenty minutes too many. 

Then, finally, rooms. 

Doors. 

Showers. 

Very hot showers. 

The kind that hurt at first. 

The kind that bring a person back. 

There was only one problem. 

Their dry clothes were still with Brent. 

And Brent was still out looking after Lisa and Monica. 

Lisa and Monica were a few hours behind them, dressed impeccably and warm. 

So the three riders improvised. 

Bedsheets. 

Three tired riders wrapped like strange hotel ghosts, waiting for the support vehicle and trying to warm up. 

The baseboard heaters were cranked to eleven. 

Every damp piece of gear was hung, draped, balanced, or spread across the room in the hope that heat and time would do something useful. 

Day Three was only 60 kilometres. 

That is the funny part. 

Only 60. 

But it had 1,400 metres of climbing. 

Rain. 

Steep grades. 

Lonely Doug from a distance. 

A decommissioned logging road. 

Bike lifting. 

Bear scat. 

Hypothermia concerns. 

A freezing descent. 

A missed check-in detail. 

Hot showers. 

Bedsheets. 

And the strongest reminder of the whole trip. 

Distance is only one way to measure a ride. 

Sometimes the hardest day is not the longest. 

Sometimes the hardest day is the one that asks the most. 

Day Three asked a lot. 

 

Bacon, Potholes, and Beach Camp 

Nitinat to Pacheena Bay 

The group woke up in Nitinat hoping the rain was finally done with them. 

Maybe. 

Hopefully. 

No one was willing to say it too loudly. 

After three wet days, superstition starts to feel practical. 

But the morning already felt different. 

They had slept inside. 

Actual rooms. 

Actual beds. 

Actual heat. 

The baseboard heaters had worked overtime. 

So had the showers. 

And outside, Brent was cooking like he had decided to single-handedly fix the morale of the entire group. 

Bacon. 

Eggs. 

Coffee. 

More coffee. 

Then somehow, from the depths of the support truck, he produced a massive camp stove and what appeared to be an optional 30-pound griddle. 

No one asked how he had packed it. 

No one cared. 

It was there. 

It was hot. 

And it was glorious. 

After the cold, wet grind into Nitinat the day before, breakfast felt less like a meal and more like an apology from the universe. 

Dave accepted that apology enthusiastically. 

Maybe too enthusiastically. 

There is a line with bacon. 

Dave found it. 

Then crossed it. 

 

Lisa and Monica rolled out first again. 

Forty-five minutes ahead. 

Their rhythm. 

The group rhythm. 

The same pattern that had started to define the trip. 

Let the route stretch the riders out. 

Let the day bring them back together. 

Kim, Jonny, and Dave rolled out behind them. 

The gravel road out of town wasted no time reminding everyone it had been raining for days. 

Every pothole was full. 

Not some of them. 

All of them. 

Brown water. 

Grey water. 

Mystery-depth water. 

The game was to dodge the worst ones. 

It was impossible to dodge them all. 

Sometimes a rider chose wrong. 

Sometimes very wrong. 

The bike would drop in, water would explode upward, and everyone would instantly learn whether shoes had dried overnight. 

Usually, they had not. 

Still, the mood was better. 

The sun was supposed to come out. 

The worst of the riding was supposedly behind them. 

Supposedly. 

That word was doing a lot of work. 

The map still showed two big climbs. 

And plenty of little ones hiding between them. 

But it also showed something else. 

A long descent. 

Pacheena Bay. 

The ocean. 

A campsite on the beach. 

That was enough to pull the group forward. 

The climbing came as expected. 

Long enough to hurt. 

Steady enough to make conversation disappear. 

But not as brutal as Day Three. 

After what the riders had pushed through on the way to Nitinat, the group had a different kind of confidence. 

Not fresh. 

Not fast. 

Just proven. 

They had already been cold. 

Already been wet. 

Already lifted bikes over decommissioned roads and ridden through bear country and wrapped themselves in motel bedsheets while waiting for dry clothes. 

Day Four would have to work harder to scare them. 

Dave’s stomach had other ideas. 

The bacon celebration had consequences. 

Somewhere between the climbs and the potholes, his body filed a complaint. 

Not catastrophic. 

Just enough to make the day feel a little longer than it needed to. 

Dave kept riding. 

Not happily. 

But moving. 

That counts. 

Eventually, the route began to tilt the right way. 

Down. 

Toward the coast. 

Toward Bamfield. 

Toward Pacheena Bay. 

There are descents that feel like relief. 

This one felt like arrival. 

The air changed first. 

Then the light. 

Then the smell. 

Ocean. 

After days in the forest, after mud and rain and logging roads and wet gravel, the coast felt like a reward earned one pedal stroke at a time. 

Dave rolled into Bamfield still not feeling right and went straight for stomach medication. 

A small detour. 

A necessary one. 

A very good decision. 

By the time Dave doubled back toward Pacheena Bay, he was a much happier cyclist. 

Kim came with him to Bamfield. 

Jonny, meanwhile, turned around and went back to find Lisa and Monica. 

Then, because apparently the day had not included enough riding, he rode the final stretch into Pacheena Bay again with them. 

That is the kind of thing that only sounds reasonable during a trip like this. 

Back home, it would be strange. 

Out there, it made perfect sense. 

When the group finally gathered at camp, the day softened. 

Completely. 

Pacheena Bay was beautiful. 

Not “nice campsite” beautiful. 

Not “good enough after a long ride” beautiful. 

Actually beautiful. 

Beach. 

Ocean. 

Open sky. 

The feeling that the island had finally decided to show its gentler side. 

The campsite amazed everyone. 

After days of riding through rain and mud, setting up beside the beach felt almost unreal. 

Lisa and Monica kept riding back and forth along the sand where the tide had pulled away. 

Loaded bikes off. 

Pressure off. 

Just riding because it was fun. 

Because the beach was there. 

Because sometimes, after days of effort, the best thing to do with a bike is keep riding it for no reason at all. 

Dinner came next. 

A real dinner. 

The kind that tastes better because of where a person is. 

Then a campfire. 

Then s’mores. 

Sticky fingers. 

Smoke in their clothes. 

Tired legs stretched toward the heat. 

For the first time in days, the group was not bracing for the next storm. 

They were just there. 

The bikes leaned nearby. 

The bags were dusty, wet, and proven. 

The support truck had once again somehow produced exactly what was needed. 

And the route, after days of taking from them, had given something back. 

A beach. 

A fire. 

A quiet night. 

Tomorrow would be a transit day. 

The ferry from Bamfield to Port Alberni. 

Four hours off the bikes. 

Four hours to sit still. 

Four hours to watch the coastline pass and think about everything it had taken to get there. 

But that was tomorrow. 

Day Four ended at Pacheena Bay. 

With full stomachs. 

Warmer spirits. 

And the hope, finally, that the rain was behind them. 

Maybe. 

 

Ferry Good Decisions 

Pacheena Bay to Bamfield to Port Alberni 

Day Five was supposed to be easy. 

And compared to the days before, it was. 

Mostly. 

The route did not ask much from the riders. 

Six kilometres from Pacheena Bay to Bamfield. 

Then a ferry ride up the Alberni Inlet to Port Alberni. 

No massive climbs. 

No decommissioned logging roads. 

No hypothermia checks. 

No bear-scat singletrack. 

Just six kilometres. 

Naturally, Kim suggested a time trial. 

Because of course she did. 

After everything the route had thrown at them, after days of rain and climbing and dragging loaded bikes through the forest, apparently the appropriate thing to do on the easy morning was to turn six kilometres into a race. 

The group did not quite go that far. 

Instead, they settled on chasing a Strava segment. 

A reasonable compromise. 

Or so they thought. 

The joke was on them. 

The segment had started just before the campsite driveway. 

They had already missed it. 

So they hustled for nothing. 

All that effort. 

All that intensity. 

All that imagined glory. 

And according to Strava, it basically never happened. 

Bikepacking keeps riders humble in many ways. 

Technology helps. 

The group regrouped in Bamfield and switched from riders to tourists. 

The pace slowed. 

The helmets came off. 

The general store became the destination. 

Snacks. 

Souvenirs. 

A few things nobody probably needed but suddenly wanted because they were in Bamfield and that seemed like reason enough. 

Then the riders went up to the Marine Sciences Centre. 

Read the historical signs. 

Learned that Bamfield had once been the terminus of the trans-Pacific cable. 

Who knew? 

Not them. 

Not before that morning. 

That is one of the gifts of travelling by bike. 

Riders notice things they would otherwise drive past. 

They stop because they are already moving slowly. 

They read the sign. 

They learn the thing. 

Then they keep going. 

Eventually, the group rolled down to the pier to catch the boat. 

The ferry was not just transportation. 

It was theatre. 

When it arrived, the locals began receiving shipments like they had done it a thousand times. 

Probably because they had. 

Boxes. 

Supplies. 

Groceries. 

All of it stacked onto a flatbed truck in a way that seemed both confident and deeply questionable. 

No ropes. 

No straps. 

No visible concern. 

Then off it went. 

Down the pier. 

Into town. 

Someone’s groceries were going to be extra crumbly that week. 

The riders watched in amazement. 

Then loaded the bikes. 

Then themselves. 

And for the first time in days, the route moved while they sat still. 

The ferry ride was somehow cold and hot at the same time. 

The sun came out and roasted them. 

The breeze off the water cut right through. 

Jackets on. 

Jackets off. 

Repeat. 

But nobody was complaining. 

Not really. 

Because the Alberni Inlet was doing its best to make the easy day unforgettable. 

The riders saw a mother orca with two calves playing close to shore. 

Then, farther out, a humpback whale blowing water spouts in the distance. 

After days of staring at gravel, mud, potholes, and the wheel in front of them, the ocean gave the group a show. 

It felt like a gift. 

A reminder that the route was more than suffering. 

More than kilometres. 

More than climbing. 

It was place. 

Forest. 

Coast. 

Water. 

Wildlife. 

Community. 

And a small boat carrying tired riders and dusty bikes toward the next chapter. 

When the group arrived in Port Alberni, the spell broke a little. 

The bikes came off. 

The bags were checked. 

The next logistics began. 

Lisa and Monica jumped in the truck with Brent for the drive out to the cottage of one of Lisa’s childhood friends. 

Kim, Jonny, and Dave looked at the map. 

Twenty-five extra kilometres. 

At that point in the trip, the reasonable choice would have been obvious. 

Get in the truck. 

Sit down. 

Accept the ride. 

But reason had not been making all of their decisions. 

So Kim, Jonny, and Dave rode. 

What was an extra 25 kilometres? 

Apparently, the difference between being done and being almost done. 

Still, the road rolled by easily enough. 

The legs were tired, but not empty. 

The sun was out. 

And there was a cottage waiting. 

That helped. 

So did the thought of dinner. 

By the time everyone arrived, the day had become something completely different from the days before. 

No emergency tire runs. 

No freezing descents. 

No sketchy bridges. 

No wet tents. 

Just a BBQ. 

Good food. 

Good people. 

And real beds. 

Actual beds. 

The kind with mattresses that do not deflate. 

The kind riders do not have to crawl into while trying to avoid touching wet tent walls. 

The kind that make everyone remember how much they like sleeping indoors. 

The group knew it would not last. 

Tomorrow, they would be back to camping. 

Back to packing bikes. 

Hopefully not back to managing damp gear. 

Back to the rhythm of the route. 

But for one night, Day Five gave them a break. 

A short ride that became a fast ride that did not count. 

A little history. 

A questionable flatbed full of groceries. 

Whales. 

Sun. 

Wind. 

An extra 25 kilometres because apparently the riders still had not learned. 

A BBQ. 

And beds. 

The rare bikepacking luxury of moving forward without pedalling. 

And then, somehow, choosing to pedal anyway.