I guided Vancouver Island's North Coast Trail May 17-28. The inland portions of the trail were in usual Spring wet and muddy states.
There are numerous wind blown trees across the entire length of the trail. The light keepers at Cape Scott blamed these on unusually strong west winds this past winter. They mentioned a crew of four will be working on the trail in June and then during July/August this will be reduced to 2 trail workers. The wind fall are not "show stoppers" but they do make a reasonably challenging walk a little more work! We spent a lot of time crawling, passing packs and bashing thick bush. It was my 6th time in as many years hiking the trail and it is definitely in the roughest shape I've encountered.
The Cape Scott Trails north of Eric Lake are in much better shape with just a few trees down. Eric Lake to the parking lot has been cleared completely.
We and another group met a wolf at Shuttleworth Bight that seemed to completely ignore our presence but was not aggressive in any way.
Dave Sarkany