It's that time again. Time to pack up the goods and head for the trail.

I'm flying off to Seattle tomorrow afternoon for a week of business there. Not a bad place to be regardless of the reason. A beautiful, vibrant, walkable city and I can't wait to touch down and settle in.

After business is concluded comes the trail part of the trip.

And the destination this time is extra special: The West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Just a ferry ride from downtown Seattle to Victoria and a shuttle bus to Port Renfrew on the edge of the wilderness of the Pacific Rim National Park.

It's been a long courtship between the WCT and me. And now, in less than a week I'll finally be there walking a path that first captured my imagination as a kid some thirty-odd years ago.

It was in an early Sierra Designs gear catalog, and the staff hiked the West Coast Trail in a combination gear testing, staff retreat, catalog promotion thing. A journal of the trek appeared in that year's catalog and has stuck with me ever since.

Thirty years is a long time to wait for something, so I guess patience really is a virtue. But I trust the West Coast Trail will prove to have been worth the wait.

8 days and 7 glorious nights and 50 miles of rugged hiking along the western coast of Vancouver Island over what amounts to little more than an old shipwreck trail with centuries of maritime history.

Long stretches of empty beach, strenuous ups and downs through thick and wet and ancient coastal forest, hazardous river and tidal inlet crossings, exciting cable car rides and suspension bridge crossings, the possibility of brown bear visits, the wind and wet of the ever present Pacific Ocean to our left.

Solitude; deep, serious solitude. And wilderness beauty of the highest magnitude.

Yes, it will have been worth the wait.

That's where I'll be for the next couple of weeks, so things here at the Trail Head will be on the quiet side until later in the month.

But I'll be back with photos and stories and will share all that I can. And I hope you will share with me your adventures in this most glorious month to be outdoors in Maine and beyond: September!

Ciao for now...