No-nonsense gear and survival advice from the author of 55 Pounds of Regret.
Jason Van Bergen 
Big Agnes Rapide SL Insulated Review: The Backcountry Orthopedic Bed 1. The Thrasher Cove Triage By the time I dropped my ridiculously overloaded 55-pound backpack at the Thrasher Cove campground on Day 1 of the West Coast Trail, my middle-aged joints were in full revolt. The ladders had destroyed my quads, the mud bogs had … Read more
Osprey Exos 58 Review: What Happens When You Load an Ultralight Pack with 55 Pounds of Regret? There is a golden rule in the ultralight backpacking community: you do not buy a 2.8-pound precision-engineered pack just to stuff it like a Thanksgiving turkey. The Osprey Exos 58 is built to float on your back, utilizing … Read more
Parks Canada uses polite phrases like “challenging terrain” to describe the southern stretch of the West Coast Trail. The unvarnished reality is that the initial 22-kilometer push north from the Gordon River trailhead operates as an industrial meat grinder, responsible for a massive percentage of the 80 to 100 emergency evacuations that occur every single … Read more
Parks Canada’s online West Coast Trail registration system is a total scam. If you just logged on and watched all the summer permits vanish in forty-five seconds, stop panicking. I am going to show you how to completely bypass the February Thunderdome and actually get on this trail. Back in 1993, Parks Canada had just … Read more
If you are currently researching West Coast Trail reservations for 2027, let me welcome you to the most stressful thirty minutes of your winter. Every year, usually around early February (the 2026 portal opened on February 5th at 8:00 AM), thousands of hikers log onto the Parks Canada portal, watch the queue glitch out, and … Read more
There is a profound difference between the West Coast Trail you imagine from your living room and the trail you actually experience on a slick, near-vertical ladder with a massive backpack threatening to rip you backward. You need a West Coast Trail packing list. When I was researching 55 Pounds of Regret, I realized that … Read more
If you spend enough time researching gear for the West Coast Trail, you will inevitably stumble into the weeds of West Coast Trail Pack Weight and the “ultra-light” hiking community. These are the astute, experienced hikers who debate the necessity of every single piece of gear. They possess a fascinating subculture of ounce-counting, where every … Read more
The Portrait of a 280-Pound Sloth West Coast Trail Trekking Poles: Picture a 51-year-old man who is six-foot-five, weighs 230 pounds, possesses zero core strength, and is carrying a 50-pound pack. Now put him in the mud. My gait is slow. And I don’t just mean slower than average. I mean that my progress is … Read more
Navigating the Owen Point West Coast Trail boulder fields is physically demanding. Navigating them while carrying a 55-pound backpack full of regret is an act of pure stubbornness. Here is how to survive the gauntlet. Ask anyone who has hiked the southern end of the West Coast Trail about Owen Point, and you will get … Read more
If you search for a West Coast Trail video, you will find an endless supply of breathtaking, color-graded masterpieces. You will see extremely fit people standing on pristine beaches, looking thoughtfully at the horizon while gentle acoustic guitar music plays. I am not one of those people. I am a fifty-one-year-old dad who strapped fifty-five … Read more