Lessons learned from the West Coast Trail (applied to hiking, business and life)

Setting

The West Coast Trail is a bucket list hiking excursion for many back country campers in British Columbia. 5-8 days, 75 KM of rugged and beautiful coastal trail with varying degrees of difficulty. Tons of wildlife, mud, roots, beach and pristine wilderness. You have to carry all your supplies with you - food, gear, fuel - and mostly are able to get water on the trail (with filters/boiling applied by you). 

Lessons from the hike

Every ounce counts - planning and preparation are key

Bring the right gear. A lightweight tent, worn in solid hiking boots (but not too worn, I saw several hikers with broken boots on the trail), and a wide variety of specialized items - stove, dishes, first aid supplies. Great wool socks combined with glide help prevent blisters. And most importantly, every ounce counts. If it’s not functional, if you can’t use it everyday, you should likely leave it behind. You should consider mixed-use items - items that have more than one purpose or can be used in more than one way. Share a single bowl, spoon, fork. 

In our case, I hiked with two people (my 15 year old daughter and I). This means that between us we had to handle one-off items (stove, dishes, tents) and balance the weight of food, etc. If you’re a single hiker, it means being even more spare. Large groups could share weight more easily which meant lighter bags per person. From a business perspective, I’m reminded of this in my startup life. Every person needs to carry their weight, you can’t afford a lot of indulgences when you’re small and need to be lean and sparse on what you bring along. 

Practice with weight

Theory vs. execution. We went out several times prior to our hike with our gear and fully loaded bags. This helped us understand whether the weight was realistic, experience the issues of roots, water, etc in a more friendly environment before committing to the full seven days. On the WCT you pack out what you pack in - if you bring too much, or excess weight - you can’t leave it behind. In business - execution is key. The best laid plans often go astray when met with reality - so test customers, activity in the market, etc - mean a world more than any actual theory dreamed up on a white board.

Picking dates and getting lucky

Timing makes a huge difference in hiking and business. We experienced basically no rain on our hike because I made sure to book at the end of August (a historically dry season) which made everything on the trail easier. Less mud, easier camping, less slippery rocks and roots. In business, sometimes you get lucky, but picking the right industry, partner, approach, timing is key as well. Often times the right idea too early is just as bad as the wrong idea too late. 

Show up every day - work to be done

No matter how tired you are or how tempting it is to stop - on the WCT you want to make it to your next port of refuge - the next campsite - where you can set up your tent, get water, rest and recuperate for the next day. Sometimes this means 15 KM over seven hours, sometimes it is five hard KM over five hours - but you need to reach that next milestone. Any gaps from the day before (stopping early before your destined site) needs to be made up the next day. Business is the same - if you don’t close business in a given week, that puts you in the hole for the next week. Having daily, weekly, monthly milestones - destinations to achieve - help bring the team into focus.

Looking back is always better

When you’re in the mud, you’re in the mud. It’s better if you learn to embrace it. The dirty work needs to be done, the trail crossed, the creek forded. Looking back our human nature sees the difficulty as accomplishments and bells rung. Know that going in and you can bear almost anything for a period of time. One of my personal favourite bits was a section of bouldering (climbing small and very large spiked and slippery beach boulders) for a period of almost two hours. At any point, a fall would have resulted in serious injury. I was sweating not from the difficulty of the climbing with a pack, but with the intense care and focus. There was desperation felt each time we rounded another corner on the beach and saw another several hundred metres of boulders. By far some of the most technically challenging hiking I’ve ever done. And at the end, a tremendous feeling of accomplishment, glee that we had chosen and completed the harder route, and increased confidence dealing with difficult trails in the future.

Slow and steady

Enjoying the sights and the journey. It is so important to stop when you have a chance, take five or thirty minutes to enjoy the view. It’s hard to do when you’re in the middle of it all, and have to press on to that next campsite, but the views are a big reason you’re on the journey. I struggle at properly celebrating success in business - I’m always thinking about the next goal, the next milestone. When you get to those spots, where the wind is cool and the sights long, whales are swimming by and the sea lions crying out on the rock, you need to take extra time to enjoy those sweet, sweet moments.

Music as motivation (sparing)

Sometimes, you just need a little extra push to make it over the next hill, or set of ladders. For my daughter and I, music was a great motivator. I believe the key with any sort of aid like this, is to not overuse it or it loses the effect. 

Who you travel with matters

They say the test of a relationship is travel. In travel, you get to see all sides of a person - how they behave when things go wrong, getting outside of their comfort zone, if they’re easy to get along with during long periods of monotony or will enjoy the highlights with you. The relationships you forge in life or in business are often built in the hardest periods, and shared success and journeys are tremendous relationship builders.

Brand opportunities abound

I had three really interesting “brand” experiences on the hike. First was “Canada”. The parks staff were knowledgable, funny, helpful. The heritage lighthouse locations were incredibly maintained, beautiful, scenic. The Canada 150 chairs in just the right place to watch whales swim by were iconic. The experience overall made me feel really positively about my Canadian tax dollars at work. The second brand was the Ditidaht First Nations people - welcoming, friendly, personable. One day we’d been hiking through mud for 5 KMs and ran into a young man working on the trail and he smiled and said “it gets better soon!” - we rounded the corner and walked onto hundreds of metres of painstakingly built fresh cedar boardwalk that was a welcome relief and a testament to the hard work these people had done to make their lands welcoming. We are so fortunate in BC and Canada to live, work and play on both treaty and unceded territory of a First Nation’s people who are so connected to the land and welcoming to those of us sharing it. The last was a negative experience - TELUS. On the trail there is no Canadian cellular access except at the very northern end. You can, however, pick up US cellular access (Washington State is clear line of sight). So for ~65 KM of trail in Canada your cell service is US. I turned on my cellular briefly to discover the US access, turned it off right away. Turned it on the next day to text my family and inform them we were safe. Discovered that somehow TELUS had disabled my Easy Roam, that the day before’s 15 second of time on had racked up a $100 bill, and that they’d disabled US roaming on my account. Not a positive brand experience.

Stamina

An interesting observation was that I struggled the first couple of days with the weight of my bag and the long distances we had to travel. As time went on, however, and the trail got harder, I actually found myself building strength and stamina and things got easier. My daughter on the other hand started off well but really tired out and struggled on the back end. I believe in business as well there are people who naturally respond with strength to difficult situations, and need a challenge to raise their game to the level needed, and others who can perform well when the weather is sunny but struggle when the rain comes.

Every KM is unique - distance vs time

On the second day of our hike, we covered 18 KMs in about seven hours (including a wonderful stop at the Crab Shack on Nitinat Narrows). On the last day of our hike, we covered 5 KMs in four and a half hours. Not all KMs are the same. Some milestones will be easier to reach, some harder. Some will look difficult from the outside but when you get into them are very reasonable. Not all stages of the journey are the same for all people.

After a wonderful “break” on the West Coast Trail at the end of the August, I’ve returned rejuvenated and excited about September at Kobalt. I hope you all have a great fall and your journeys are rewarding.