On Friday morning, we packed up camp and left Tofino. About an hour later, we stopped at a small parking lot off the highway for a break. We ended up hiking the Giant Cedar Trail, a forest trail which travels alongside the Kennedy River. Midway into the hike, we removed our shoes and walked to a large, sun-exposed island in the middle of Kennedy River. Michel, Rachel and I swam in the river for about 15 minutes before returning to the large island to have a lunch break. At this time, I crossed the river back to the Giant Cedar Trail because I wasn’t very comfortable laying out on the sun-exposed island for too long. I told Michel, Rachel, and Julien that I would be strolling around the shaded forest and would meet them on their back to the car. About 30 minutes later, they were walking back to the car and told me that Rachel and Julien decided to spend a couple of days on Kennedy River and would meet up with us on Sunday at the Co-op gas station near Cameron Lake. Throughout the week, Rachel and Julien were hesitant about joining us for the upcoming weekend camping trip to Arrowsmith Saddle because they were concerned it would be too strenuous. Considering the high difficulty level of the upcoming weekend’s hike, this was probably a good decision.
Michel and I continued on toward Port Alberni, planning on camping at the same place as we did on Tuesday night across the highway from Cameron Lake. We drove about 30 minutes out of our way to visit Stamp River Provincial Park, a park and campground with a waterfall and fish ladder. We walked along the river, waterfall, and fish ladder for about 30-45 minutes, before returning to Port Alberni and continuing on Highway 4 toward Cameron Lake.
We arrived at Cameron Lake at about 6PM, with a few hours of daylight remaining. Michel wanted to relax and swim at Cameron Lake, but I was more in the mood for a walk, so I just decided to walk across the Highway and hike the Arrowsmith Trail to Mckay Bridge again (same hike as wednesday morning). Afterwards, I descended back to Cameron Lake just in time to catch the end of a beautiful sunset.
