West Coast Trail: How to Use a Forest Fire for Rescue.

"Good plan Beth! The forest fire should bring attention to us and we'll be able to evacuate her" - but we'll get back to this part of the story shortly.

Evacuation is always a possibility when guiding groups. Rough terrain can lead to sprains, strains, twists, pulls, and breaks. Fortunately, over 23 years of guiding, I have had to evacuate only two hikers. One of these was along the West Coast Trail, and it provided a great story.

I was guiding with Beth Dempster, one of our best and seasoned guides. When hiking through the twisting rain forest sections of the West Coast Tail, Beth would take lead and I would take the tail. This method offered optimum safety for our charges. Lead can identify upcoming hazards and control pace, while the tail would monitor the slower members of the group.

During one of these sections, I decide to take a quick break for a visit to the "little boy's forest". Returning to the trail, I picked up my pace to catch up with the group. I heard noise up ahead and assumed it was some other hikers traveling in my direction. As I came around a bend in the trail, I was surprised to see our group retreating towards me with some haste. One of the female hikers was limping quite noticeably. This didn't look good, I thought, offering up the obvious.

"Black bear up ahead!", came the warning.

I didn't see Beth with the group. Was she okay? Any seasoned, honest guide will tell you that a concern for one's partner is firmly rooted in the fear that you will have to do all the meal preparations and clean-ups on your own, if the other guide is injured, or eaten by a bear.

Beth appeared. A sigh of relief! She informed us that the bear eventually left the trail for the underbrush. We waited awhile to allow the bear space and time to disappear completely, then we continued on our way.

The woman who had tripped over a root in her eagerness to get out of the "kill zone", as she called it, insisted she could continue with the hike. Her knee, although tender, did not show signs of anything serious. We reached our beach campsite for the evening and settled in.

Cold compresses and loving attention seemed to work fine on our injured companion.

The next morning, when we checked on her condition, the knee had ballooned. She found it extremely difficult to get around, or to even bend it. Beth and I conferred away from the group and decided that one of us would have to stay with her until the swelling went down. We would then slowly hike back to a water crossing where we could have a First Nations ferryman take us back to his village. From there, we could get her to a medical facility by road for further assessment.

We decided (that's guide talk for "I" decided) that Beth would go on with the rest of the group. We were about 3 days hiking to the end of the trail. This would mean that Beth would have to do all the work alone, something that she mumbled incoherent words about. Maybe all this could be avoided if we could attract the attention of some fishing vessels some distance offshore, she opined. I felt that they were too far away to be attracted to any of the flares that we carried for emergencies. Nonetheless, Beth was intent on trying it. We all stood on the beach beside her as she sent the flare high into the air. Unfortunately, in activating the trigger mechanism, she affected the trajectory, and the flare arched overhead and into the rain forest behind us rather than into the ocean. "Good plan Beth! The forest fire should bring attention to us and we'll be able to evacuate her". Beth could not see the humour in my comment, a serious flaw in an otherwise exceptional woman.

Fortunately, the wetness of the rain forest prevented the flare from igniting any vegetation. It was back to the original plan.

The group headed out on the trail as the woman and myself stretched out on the warm sands offered up by a sunny day on the trail. Any feelings of guilt were quickly warmed out of my psyche. We would wait the day there before hiking (limping) a short distance to the ferryman's boat for evacuation. Once I was able to arrange medical assistance, I would return to the trailhead, hike back in, and meet Beth to finish our tour of duty.

No more than 30 minutes had passed when I heard, from around a headland, the recognizable whip!whip!whip! of a helicopter. I quickly sought out the flare pen and fired off a flare, careful not to bring down the helicopter as it flew over us. It continued on its way. Drat, I thought! They weren't going to stop. The copter then flew out over the ocean, made a sweeping turn, and returned to the beach. It hovered there for a minute or two. We later found out that the pilot was assessing the danger of attempting a landing on the beach. It was wonderful to see it finally descend and land some 50 meters from where we were sitting.

The copter was from the 442 Coast Guard Rescue Squadron, stationed just up the coast. The tail section opened and a crew member made his way over to us. I described our situation and asked if they could get us to some help. Sure. We grabbed our gear and headed over to the copter, up the rear ramp, and settled on a bench seat. No luxury here.

I was excited about the prospect of a helicopter flight, as I had never flown in one before. This excitement was somewhat tempered by the the fact that the copter shook like a dog trying to off load a body full of fleas. I was convinced that it was trying to dislodge every nut and bolt that held it together.

I looked out the small portal window as we flew over the ocean, parallel to the West Coast Trail. We were heading to Bamfield, the small town at the end of the trail, where I could arrange medical help and transportation back to Vancouver for our injured hiker. Wow, I thought! This was so cool! It would take us all of 15 minutes to cover the distance that Beth would cover over 3 days.

A crewman came over as we flew, and fitted us with headphones so that we could communicate over the shaking and rattling of the copter. He had to fill out an evacuation form for his superiors. I asked if they flew the route daily. No, he said. They were on a special assignment to pick up an elk's head in Victoria, for the officer's mess on base. I laughed. I thought he was pulling our legs. No. He gestured to the front of the copter, to a large orange garbage bag situated between the pilot and co-pilot. There were two large antlers protruding from the orange bag. I nodded in acknowledgment - the privilege of rank!

We reached Bamfield and the help that we needed. The next day I hiked back to meet up with Beth and relate one heck of a story.