West Coast Trail: A Bittersweet Time

I learned over the years that guiding is much more than taking people from point A to point B. Each person and each group introduces a dynamic that needs to be identified and acknowledged, if any meaningful experience is to follow. Some participants require attention and encouragement, others bring an independence that demands some distance, and, from time to time, there are those who will test your resolve and patience.

Groups are interesting also. For a myriad of reasons, some groups never bond to a level of any meaningful self-interaction. These groups depend on a leader's social skills to establish a hub to which group members are attracted, and then to some interaction.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, are those few special times that the cosmos offers up a group of individuals whose mix forms the ideal. They will depend on your outdoor skills in an unknown environment, but socially, they function with an ease that minimizes your need to contribute or control.

And so you ask: "Where is this all going?". Well, I was thinking the other day about such a group that I led many, many years ago on the West Coast Trail. Time has fogged the names of some in the group, but I do remember Sam. I recall that he was a manager of a lumber mill near Vancouver. He was as bubbly as they come - charismatic, and so alive to this new experience. He had always wanted to hike the West Coast Trail but believed he did not possess the skills to pull it off on his own. His personality and excitement for the area and activity was infectious, and it drew others in the group into his orbit - myself included.

(Visit our facebook album to view photos of the West Coast Trail)

We all had a marvelous time and pledged to return again to do a trip in a year or two. We all went our separate ways with the promise to keep in touch. This is a pledge that is common but seemed very likely with this group.

My next guiding assignments were in the north. When I returned to the office, I was told that, one week after Sam completed the West Coast Trail, he was riding his bike when he was hit by a car and killed. I was both saddened and yet fulfilled. Fulfilled because his wife phoned me to say that Sam's experience on the West Coast Trail was so important to him on many levels.

And the photo? Well, Sam carved his initials on a weathered lineman's cabin on the trail. The years and coastal storms are surely taking its toll. Soon, Sam's initials will be lost to the ages. I thought it important to remember Sam and keep his memory alive somehow.

And the group? We never came together again.