The West Coast Trail has historically been where things collide: the Pacific Ocean buffets the west coast of Vancouver Island, ill-fated ships run aground, environmentalists clash with loggers, and, one July day, my ass met the slick log I'd just slipped off.

Thankfully, my 27-kilogram pack absorbed part of the impact. I was spared the indignity of having my hiking partners come upon me turtled in the mud. As I righted myself, I knelt before a tsunami of roots and soil. Beyond lay a jumble of trunks and branches, the product of a more recent collision: last winter's epic windstorms and the estimated 2,000 trees knocked onto the trail.

This year, the West Coast Trail celebrates its centennial. The Quu'as West Coast Trail Society–composed of the three First Nations whose traditional territory the trail passes through–and Parks Canada have worked hard since March to clear the trail and repair infrastructure. Much of the obvious damage is in the northern portion of the trail. This resulted from "the storms within the storm, like mini tornados", said Joe Cooper of Parks Canada, who oversaw repairs. "There are several instances in the first five kilometres [from Bamfield] of three- to five-acre swaths blown down with nothing left standing. We couldn't even find the trail in some sections."

And that's just the recent damage. "Most people tend to concentrate on the windstorms last year, but there's been issues over the last three years," said Cooper, who has been working on the trail for eight years. "Three years ago, we had damage from heavy rainfall, over 100 millimetres in a 24-hour period. In the first kilometre on the Bamfield end, we had a hundred feet [of the trail] wash out, and a hundred feet near Kilometre 17. We ended up having to do a 900-foot reroute. Two years ago saw a lot of damage from the high tides”¦beaches got hammered.”¦Then last year, it was the windstorms."

"I'm extremely worried. I'm seeing events that I've never seen [before]," said Jim Hamilton, a 75-year-old who has lived alone in a cabin set back in the woods since 1952. "Last year was terrible. Like a war zone."

But to focus on the past few years is to miss the bigger picture. Hamilton sees the West Coast Trail as a barometer for climate change. "We've got to cut down our burning of fossil fuels," he said. "We're too much in motorized vehicles."

A hundred years ago it was boats, not cars, colliding with the coast. There had been enough wrecks off this stretch of Vancouver Island that it earned the moniker Graveyard of the Pacific. As a result, between 1907 and 1912, a shipwrecked mariners' trail was forged from the existing telegraph-line trail.

Advances in navigation technology greatly reduced the number of major shipwrecks, and federal government abandoned maintenance of the trail in 1954. The efforts of conservationists won inclusion of the West Coast Trail in the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve in 1973.

Leading up to my group's planned hike, what concerned us most were two rather self-interested questions. First, could we even get on the trail? Hamilton can recall summers when he wouldn't see a single stranger on the trail. Now 5,000 to 6,000 hikers tromp past each season. That may seem like a lot, but it's still far fewer than the cap of 8,000 imposed in 1991 after numbers had reached as high as 12,000. "It's a myth that the trail is fully booked," Cooper said. "Only in July and August is it really booked, but with cancellations and six walk-ons [permitted] from either direction every day, even in those months there's never more than a one-day wait to get on." Our foursome got on without a reservation in mid-July.

Our second question: is it still the same West Coast Trail experience that draws people from all over the world? Over 75 kilometres, we answered our own question. We gaped at massive cedars, twists of bark spiralling up tens of metres through the mist. We bent to look at a small patch of moss capturing beads of water, refracting light like diamonds. We passed in and out of ecosystems: through temperate rain forests and marshes, and over sandy beaches and sandstone shelves pocketed with tidal pools. We waded through clear rivers and baked dry under deep-blue skies. At night, we fell asleep to the sound of surf crashing or the white noise of a waterfall.

The damage is awe-inspiring in its own way. "It makes you feel really small. Trees are big, but when they're on their side like that”¦" said a Manitoban we shared a campfire with.

Cooper concurred: "I walked up the trunk of one of these fallen giants and I'm told that it's just like going up into the high canopy. Branches as big as trees themselves." As for the trail, Cooper said, "The hiking experience is still the same as it's always been." Which by route's end, we all found, is well worth a bruised tailbone.

ACCESS: Since the southern section of the 75-kilometre trail is more difficult, most people recommend easing into it from the northern end, at the Pachena Bay Trailhead near Bamfield. Some prefer getting the hard ground over with, and start at the Gordon River Trailhead north of Port Renfrew. Arrange bus transportation to the trailheads from Victoria, Nanaimo, or Port Alberni through www.trailbus.com/ . Trail fees, which include both boat crossings, are $158.75, and reservations cost $24.75. Book a spot up to three months in advance by calling the Super Natural British Columbia Reservation Service at 1-800-435-5622. The season runs from May 1 to September 30, with no reservations necessary in the shoulder periods (May 1 to June 14 and September 16 to 30). Plan to spend five to seven days on the trail. David Foster and Wayne Aitken's Blisters and Bliss (B&B Publishing, 2003, fifth edition) is the West Coast Trail bible. For more information on the West Coast Trail, see the Parks Canada Web site at www.pc.gc.ca/ . The writer's transportation, trail fees, and accommodation were paid for by Tourism BC ( www.tourismbc.com/ ) and BC Ferries ( www.bcferries.com/ ).