Sechelt Quest: The Lost Camp, Part One

Brave Warriors We Were and Bold and Brash and Soon to Be Bloodied...

The Weekly meeting of Core Club for Genus Rex decided to have its meeting this week as a day hike. This week's posts will chronicle that epic trip.


We set out Sunday morning at 5:30am for the Horseshoe bay ferry terminal, to catch the first ferry across to Langdale and Gibson and from there up the Sunshine coast to Sechelt. Our goal was here, the abandoned bible camp beyond Mount Richardson Park and Tetrahedron Park that we questing warriors felt might indicate a suitable place for our planned camp.

The trip across the water and up to Sechelt went off without a hitch. We got lost trying to find the hiking trail and went up a dead end trail to a watermain access point in our first attempt to find the trail marked on the map.

Our second attempt at finding the trail was successful, and went headed up towards the potential camp site. And up was the appropriate term, because in 6 km of walking we rose 700 m. The elevation change did a number of my (Ryan Cove) knees and reminded me that I do in fact have arthritis. Donald and Jordan powered through like warrior poets. And Michelle?

Well as you can see from the picture, she was so far ahead of us boys in the first 6 km that we couldn't even see her most of the time. She only allowed us to catch up when she accidentally stepped on a bee and got stung.

After the first 6km the terrain flattened out and the travel became easier. We also realized that we could access this road with Donald's truck or even Jordan's if we slowed down and made allowance for the lower wheel base. None of us wanted to turn around at this point though, and so a mental note was made for the next trip.

As we walked we considered the idea of charging two fees for camp attendance, one for those who hiked the monster hike to the camp, and a higher fee for those who arrived by boat without having to hike. We also argued back and forth the idea of a badge for those who did this hike at least once.

Donald spotted deer tracks, and we began to notice piles of old decomposing bear poop near the end of the even trail.

Our final way station before the next elevation change would be an unnamed lake that was therefore christened Jordan Lake by somebody in the group, but certainly not by Jordan himself.

We paused to reflect on how amazing it looked, but this time we didn't stop to stick our heads in and cool down. That would change on the return trip, but we still had another 4km of switch backs and elevation drops (another 800m) to get through before we reached the point on the map where the old camp was supposed to be....

Continued Tomorrow in Part Two!