A list of gear that you will want to have on the West Coast Trail, and some tips on how to use it.

Backpack

Boots

Gaiters

Rain Gear

Water: Purifying

Water: Carrying

Backpack

First, and most obvious, you need a good backpack. A good backpack need not be expensive, however, it should fit you well. You will pay in pain and misery for an ill fitting backpack. I know, as until I recieved a MEC Bora 70 backpack for my birthday that was fitted for a “long” back, I had not known a comfortable pack before.

So, make certain it is outfitted properly, as this is a must.

Boots

Next, get yourself a good pair of hiking boots that are well broken in. During the orentation, Sheri and I noticed a young guy with shining brand new hiking boots without a single mark on them, no dirt, nothing. Just showroom clean as it were. The Parks Canada presenter commented “Ooh! Shiny new boots!” However, all the experienced hikers there knew what she really meant: “Ooh! Shiny new boots, you are going to be in a world of hurt because those are not broken in!”

You can see what your boots will look like on the trail:

As you can see, the boots are dirty and wet. I had treated my boots with nickwax before setting out, but the boots still took a beating. In fact, my soles started to delaminate, fortunately, my gaiters helped to hold the soles on. Delaminating soles are a common problem with the older Merrell Long Trail GTX series, which is unfortunate, as I have owned these boots for 11 years, and they are otherwise flawless.

Gaiters

That brings us to Gaiters. Now, you don’t reqire gaiters per say, however, I wholeheartely recommend them. They keep rain and water out of your boots, and even more importantly, sand and dirt out of your boots, and believe me, on the West Coast Trail, you will find plenty of both. I wore my gaiters whenever I wore my hiking boots. I did not get a single bister throught the whole trip. This was largely due to my well fitting boots and the gaiters keeping abrasive dirt out of my boots that could irritate my feet.

Another advantage of the gaiters was to keep the sun off my lower legs, as hiking along the beaches in the afternoon provides a glaring amount of sun. However, I noticed most people did not wear gaiters on the beaches, but I detest sand in my boots.

Rain Gear

Next up, rain gear.

While it barely drizzled on our trip, rain gear is a must. I brought my full set of Gore-Tex MEC rain gear, although this was overkill. Gore-Tex is heavy, and it only breathes in cold weather. I would have been better off to bring my ultralight North Face pants and Jacket, which are actually light nylon with waterproofing. That would have worked for a week, and reduced the heavy load I carried.

I also purchased an inexpensive pack cover from MEC for my pack, and this came in handy, although, while descending a sandstone slope, I put a number of holes in the cover. At the very least, you want to have some garbage bags to cover your gear in your pack, or, a pack cover.

For clothes, you will not require many, as like all people on the trail, you are going to stink like a hiker after a day anyways, and if you cannot tolerate that, you really should not be out on the trail to begin with. All the clothing I had was synthetic, don’t wear cotton, it could kill you. Jeans are right out. Fleece, Nylon, Lycra, Wool and Polyester, are the types of materials you want, although, fewer people today wear wool.

All my clothes were polyester blends from MEC. I brought 2 pairs of pants, 2 pairs shorts, 3 shirts, a fleece, a wool toque (for night), a tilly hat, 6 pairs synthetic socks, and a few pairs of underwear. The underwear I had was not synthetic, it was cotton, and I don’t recommend that you bring cotton underwear, go synthetic, you will be far more comfortable in the constant damp of the “wet coast”.

Water Purification

Next up, you need a water filter, and ways to carry water.

let me clarify that, you don’t actually need a water filter, you can get by with iodine tablets and boiling water, but I don’t recommend it. The reason is that iodine tablets impart a funny taste to the water, and they take time to work, and boiling takes a long time. Both are great solutions in an emergency, or, if you have lots of time. However, I am willing to bet that you are more interested in spending time enjoying the West Coast Trail than waiting for potable water.

A water filter is fast, and it works whenever you find fresh water (it does not remove salt). We brought my MSR Waterworks EX filter, and it performed flawlessly.

Carrying Your Water

Another thing to bring is a way to carry water. If you are cheap, you can go with standard pop bottles which will work fine - but most people carry Nalgene bottles. In fact, pretty much everyone on the trail, with the exception of Sheri and myself had Nalgene bottles. While we own them, we did not bring them as we found a much better solution:

The MSR dromedary bag, specifically, the DromLite 4 liter bags, with the hydration accessory. We each carried a 4 liter bag, and could drink from the accessory hose while hiking (we also bought $0.50 pack clips, to hold the hose on the pack straps.)

Now, I know what you are thinking, as many other hikers thought the same: “FOUR LITRES EACH? That is really heavy!” That adds 4 kilos to each person. However, this is the trick - you don’t have to fill the bag up all the way! You can carry 1 liter, or 2 liters, or 3, or however much you want up to 4 liters. That, and the DromLite bags when empty take up almost no room at all, whereas an empty Nalgene bottle takes up a good deal of room.

The other advantage, apart from having a self-made camel back solution is that during dinnertime, when I went to get water, I carried 2 bags with me, and I came back to camp with 8 liters - both bags full. That was enough water filtered at one time to make dinner, have drinking water for dinner, have water for breakfast, and still have water left over to carry along the next morning! I saw many other hikers making multiple trips with their Nalgene bottles to the water source, filling up a few, bringing them back to their kitchen area, and then trekking back for more water. I only had to make the trip once.

Using a DromLite bag with a drinking hose is a clearly superior solution to a Nalgene bottle in this case, and yes, the water filter screws directly onto the DromLite bag as well. In many of the pictures of the West Coast Trail, you can see the hose from the DromLite bags on our pack straps.