Planning, planning, planning!

Seven weeks to go before I head off to Canada and the planning machine is in full swing.  To be honest planning an expedition is a full time job in itself; so juggling around a full time job and family is tricky!

This week I have been concentrating on maps and route cards, safety, risk assessments and food supplies. I have found the BC National parks website to be a great source of information and it has a dedicated section to the Juan de Fuca trail.  Visit the website.

One of the most useful sections of the website is on safety and this link will take you to the page for plenty of excellent information.



Reference Books



I have been using the Juan de Fuca Marine trail guidebook by Donald C Mills as a source of information for the route cards.  This has a detailed map and ninety-three pages of indepth knowledge.  ISBN 0-9684583-0-0 

As a group we have been discussing bear safety and I have also been reading up on it through Stephen Herrero's book Bear attacks their causes and avoidance.  It is worth knowing what to do just in case there is an encounter enroute. ISBN 978-1-58574-557-9 (Thank you for the recommendation Alison!)

The national park authority has clear guidelines for dealing with wildlife and we will follow these carefully:

Never feed or approach bears or other wildlife.

Reduce or eliminate odours that attract bears. At the campground, store food in air-tight containers in your RV or car trunk.

Bear caches must be used if they are available at the park.

Pack out all your garbage. Store garbage with your food, out of reach of bears. Do not bury garbage or throw it into pit toilets. Only paper and wood may be burned: plastics, tinfoil, and food items do not burn completely and the remains will attract bears (besides creating an unsightly mess). Storing garbage in bear-proof containers is recommended.

Cook and eat well away from your tent.

Clean up immediately and thoroughly. Never leave cooking utensils, coolers, grease or dish water lying around. Dispose of dish water by straining it and then throwing it into a gray water pit or pit toilet. Solids should be packed out with the garbage.

The odours of cosmetics, toothpaste and insect repellent can attract bears. These should be stored out of reach with your food and garbage, never in your tent. Leave strongly perfumed items at home.

Obey all closures and warnings.

We will be using pocket rocket cookers and dried Mountain house Pro-paks for food.  We carry a bear barrel each for food and to store all our waste, any insect repellants or items with scent (toiletries will be at a minimum). Bear barrels will be stored away from our tent at night.



Maps



We are ordering our maps online using Stanfords and using in conjunction with Backroad mapbooks, guidebooks and National park information.  I have found it difficult to find maps of a usable scale for the Juan de Fuca trail in the UK but it seems Stanfords does a 1:50000 set of maps for the trail so these are now on order!



Tide Times



This website provides  the Canadian Fisheries and Ocean tide times for Port Renfrew and can be queried by date for a 7 day window, so we can print off our tide times before we go.
It is essential to consult the tide times as we will be crossing some areas with tidal cut offs and also consulting these for suitable beach camping spots.