BC Hiking
The West Coast Trail was created after decades of brutal and costly shipwrecks occurred along the West Coast of Vancouver Island. One shipwreck in particular was so horrific, tragic and unbelievable that it forced the creation of a trail along the coast, which previously had been simply a route through mostly impenetrable forest. Just before midnight, at 11:50pm on Monday, January 22nd the Valencia struck an underwater ledge of rock just a few hundred metres from the shore of Vancouver Island.
Victoria has a seemingly endless number of amazing hiking trails. Most take you to wild and beautiful Pacific Ocean views and others take you to tranquil lakes in beautiful BC Coastal Rainforest wilderness. Regional Parks and Provincial Parks are everywhere you turn in Victoria and finding them is not too difficult. These are some of the best of the best hiking trails in and around Victoria.
Clayoquot Sound has a staggering array of hiking trails within it. Between Tofino and Ucluelet, Pacific Rim Park has several wilderness and beach trails, each one radically different from the last. The islands in the area are often Provincial parks on their own with perfect beaches well away from the crowds. This is a list of the best of the best hiking trails and beaches in and around Clayoquot Sound.
Whistler is an amazing place to hike. Looking at a map of Whistler you see an extraordinary spider web of hiking trails. Easy trails, moderate trails and challenging hiking trails are all available. Another marvellous thing about Whistler is that Garibaldi Provincial Park wraps around it. Whistler Mountain and Blackcomb Mountain push into this massive wilderness park. You can ride a gondola to the alpine of Whistler Mountain and hike for days into Garibaldi Park's stunning heart!
West Coast Trail Guide
There are lots of options to getting to the West Coast Trail. The trail is linear so you have to arrange to get to the trailhead as well as from your exit trailhead. Most West Coast Trail hikers drive to one trailhead then bus to the other and hike back to their car. ...
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The West Coast Trail is incredible. Everything about it is amazing. From the wildly, incomprehensibly enormous trees to endless jaw dropping views. And it's tough. Very tough. It is a trail that shouldn't exist. Hiking trails always form out of the easiest route worn ...
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The West Coast Trail is a very tough hike. About one out of one hundred hikers don't make it, they need to be rescued. That's why there are so many fees. By the time you are done preparing and registering, you laugh at how hiking got so expensive. Isn't hiking usually ...
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There are 13 established campsites along the West Coast Trail. They are fairly well spaced out and all are located near fresh water creeks and rivers. Amenities are kept to a minimum to keep the trail wild and beautiful, so you rarely see any signs or markers to ...
Read moreWest Coast Trail Shipwrecks
Just past the 20 kilometre mark of the West Coast Trail you will find an anchor of the Woodside on the ...
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The Revere shipwreck lays at the bottom of Port San Juan between Thrasher Cove and Owen Point. ...
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The Robert Lewers was a 185 foot, four masted schooner of 732 tons, built in Port Blakely, ...
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The shipwreck Cyrus is located just down from the West Coast Trail's Gordon River trailhead. If ...
Read moreThe Valencia Disaster
The Valencia wrecked just before midnight on Monday, January 22nd, 1906. Nearly 34 hours later, at 9am Wednesday morning the situation on the Valencia was horrific. Battered by waves, the ship was ...
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Shortly after 3pm on Tuesday afternoon on January 23rd the Valencia’s owners in Seattle received a message that the Valencia had gone ashore somewhere west of the Carmanah Lighthouse on Vancouver ...
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This is a much more accurate list of the victims of the Valencia shipwreck than all the other lists currently found online and in print. The passenger and crew list given by the owners of the ...
Read moreWest Coast Trail Campsites
The campsite at Michigan Creek is the first or last campsite you will encounter on the West Coast Trail. First if you begin your hike at the Pachena trailhead(hiking south) and last if you begin in Port Renfrew(hiking north). The 12.1 kilometres(7.5 miles) between ...
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The Pacheedaht Campground is a beautiful, and often bustling campground, quite close to the Gordon River trailhead for the West Coast Trail. Pacheedaht Beach is exactly what you would hope for in a Vancouver Island, west coast beach. It is a two kilometres long, ...
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Carmanah Creek slowly flows through this wonderfully massive channel that cuts deep into the sand out to the ocean. There is a cable car crossing that connects to the forest on either side of the creek. Most West Coast Trail hikers pass the campsite here without ...
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Cullite Cove is a wonderful campsite on the West Coast Trail at the 58 kilometre mark. One of the nicest campsites that has everything, a lovely wooded area with clearings for tents and campfires, stunning views all around. A terrific, pebble beach, beautifully ...
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After camping at Tsusiat Falls and Carmanah Creek, you start to fall in love with every new campsite. Tsusiat Falls with its sweeping ocean views with the occasional passing whales to its crashing falls ...
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The route from Darling River to Tsusiat Falls is just under 12 kilometres and quite a lot of that distance can be hiked on the beach. From Darling River you can take an inland route or walk along ...
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The gap between official West Coast Trail campsites is quite large after Tsusiat Falls at 25km. The next campsite heading south is the crowded and ugly one at Cribs Creek at 41.5km, followed by Carmanah ...
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Day 1 on the West Coast Trail hiking south from the Pachena trailhead is a fairly relaxing first day. Your first beach, Pachena Beach is a lovely, wide, sandy arch that stretches to a thick wall of ...
Read moreWest Coast Trail A to Z
David Logan is one of the main characters on the origin and history of the West Coast Trail. Shortly after the West Coast Telegraph Line was constructed in 1889 to link the lighthouses at Carmanah Point and Cape Beale to Victoria, he was hired as a lineman to ...
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Darling Falls has to be the most overlooked and underrated feature of the West Coast Trail. It never even appeared in West Coast Trail guidebooks until recently and hardly any websites or blogs give it a mention. There are some good reasons for this. First, the ...
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Carmanah Point Lighthouse is located near the 44km mark of the West Coast Trail. It guards the entrance to Juan de Fuca Strait opposite the Cape Flattery Lighthouse 24.5km across the strait in the United States. Operational in 1891, the original structure was ...
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There are quite a few books about West Coast Trail shipwrecks, though many of them are tough to find and written decades ago. Here is a list of the ones we have found with the best information on the often scarce history of many of the lesser known shipwrecks ...
Read moreExplore BC Hiking Destinations!
The West Coast Trail
The West Coast Trail was created after decades of brutal and costly shipwrecks occurred along the West Coast of Vancouver Island. One shipwreck in particular was so horrific, tragic and unbelievable that it forced the creation of a trail along the coast, which ...
Read more
Victoria Hiking Trails
Victoria has a seemingly endless number of amazing hiking trails. Most take you to wild and beautiful Pacific Ocean views and others take you to tranquil lakes in beautiful BC Coastal Rainforest wilderness. Regional Parks and Provincial Parks are everywhere you turn ...
Read more
Clayoquot Hiking Trails
Clayoquot Sound has a staggering array of hiking trails within it. Between Tofino and Ucluelet, Pacific Rim Park has several wilderness and beach trails, each one radically different from the last. The islands in the area are often Provincial parks on their own with ...
Read more
Whistler Hiking Trails
Whistler is an amazing place to hike. Looking at a map of Whistler you see an extraordinary spider web of hiking trails. Easy trails, moderate trails and challenging hiking trails are all available. Another marvellous thing about Whistler is that Garibaldi Provincial Park ...
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Squamish Hiking Trails
Squamish sits in the midst of some amazing places to hike. Garibaldi Park sprawls from Squamish up and beyond Whistler. Tantalus Provincial Park lays across the valley to the west and the beautiful and desolate, by comparison, Callaghan Valley to the north. Add to ...
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Vancouver Hiking Trails
Vancouver is surrounded by seemingly endless hiking trails and mountains to explore. Massive parks line up one after another. Mount Seymour Provincial Park, Lynn Canyon Park, Grouse Mountain, Cypress Mountain and the enormous Garibaldi Provincial Park all ...
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