How a teen’s Croc helped Olympian Clara Hughes finish B.C.’s gruelling West Coast Trail

Here’s how Olympian Clara Hughes managed to finish B.C.’s West Coast Trail despite losing one of her shoes.

Olympian Clara Hughes completed B.C.’s gruelling West Coast Trail last weekend in unconventional style – wearing a 15-year-old stranger’s tattered Croc.

How she got there is something the six-time Olympic medalist said she’ll never forget.

“There’s a saying on the trail: ‘The trail provides,’” Hughes said, looking back on her journey. “I believe it’s the people on the trail that provide.”

She and friend from Victoria set out on the iconic 75-kilometre hike, located along the southwest coast of Vancouver Island, last Wednesday.

They hadn’t even made it one-third of the way before disaster struck. “I lost my shoe with 53 kilometres to go,” Hughes said, with a laugh. “And I lost it in a very embarrassing way.”

The friends were wading across Walbran Creek before sunrise one morning when Hughes slipped on a rock and fell into the water.

While she described the water as “literally mid-calf deep, not a big deal,” she unfortunately had not secured her trail runners to her backpack, and one of them was quickly carried away in the dark.

“I had them on my hands,” she said. “I knew immediately it was gone – I started screaming, ‘My shoe, my shoe! It’s gone! What am I going to do, I’m screwed!”

Standing at the shore in her headlamp, the speed-skater accepted her runner was lost, and that there was no way to hike dozens of kilometres half-barefoot.

She encouraged her friend to continue on as she contemplated calling for a rescue.

That’s when she noticed “a fellow that was watching the latter part of our little misadventure,” and who asked her what happened.

“This guy’s name was Steve, and Steve became my hero of the trail – along with his 15-year-old son Marley,” Hughes said.

After hearing her plight, the teenager offered the Olympian a lifeline: one beat-up pair of Crocs.

“They were a little bit small, but I was desperate,” Hughes said.

Grateful to have the replacement, she initially only hoped to make it to Nitinat Lake – an exit point approximately 21 kilometres ahead – but when she reached the lake and her friend, she realized she might be able to carry on.

“I was lucky because it was so worn out it felt like a slipper,” she laughed.

Hughes said she eventually started talking to the Croc, telling it, “You’re the best shoe ever,” “You’re my favourite shoe on Earth,” and even “I love you more than my speed skates.”

“I hiked 28 kilometres in a Croc on the West Coast Trail that day, and I was able to finish the trail,” Hughes said.

“It was the Croc that could.”

With files from CTV News Vancouver’s Scott Cunningham