Camper Bay Campsite 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 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
When shipping in and out of Juan de Fuca Strait rapidly increased in the mid 1800's and an alarming and costly number of ships were lost, the need for a inland trail was realized. It would take decades, and many more brutal and costly shipwrecks in the waters leading to
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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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The West Coast Trail hiking season is confined to just five months due to the dangerously stormy weather during the winter months. In the winter the days are short, tides are high and heavy rain and strong winds are frequent. Hiking the trail in the summer is tough ...
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There are three entry/exit points for the West Coast Trail, however the midway entry/exit point at Nitinaht Narrows is for hikers only hiking part of the trail. The two main entry points are at Pachena Bay in the north(Bamfield) and Gordon River in the south(Port ...
Read moreWest Coast Trail Shipwrecks
The Duchess of Argyle shipwreck lays at the bottom of the sea at the mouth of Cullite Cove near ...
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The Uzbekistan was a steel steamship of 2569 tons. Built in 1937 in France and became a shipwreck on ...
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At about 29 kilometres on the West Coast Trail you will pass the Vesta shipwreck. This 3 masted ...
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The Valencia Disaster
All but one of the seven lifeboats were launched during the first hour of the Valencia disaster, between midnight and 1am, Tuesday, January 23rd, 1906. Of the estimated sixty passengers and crew that ...
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After the McCarthy boat was launched successfully and cleared the breakers at around 9am Tuesday January 23rd the captain, crew and passengers on the Valencia confidently expected men to soon appear ...
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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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West Coast Trail Campsites
The campsite at Klanawa River is quite nice because of its lovely, swimmable river, expansive beach and serenity relative to other West Coast Trail campsites.. Though the beach is a thick, tangle of driftwood, you can still manage to find cleared areas perfect for ...
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Camper Bay campsite at the 62km mark of the West Coast Trail is very nice, similar to Cullite Cove there are cliffs on either side and a large creek flowing through. The downside is crowding due to the difficulty of the trail making it an almost essential campsite ...
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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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Thrasher Cove is the first, or last West Coast Trail campsite you will encounter. It has a lot of good aspects as well as some bad. In terms of good, the beach is very pretty and quite interesting. Not a broad and long beach, the beach at Thrasher is quite varied ...
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Day 7 on the West Coast Trail from Camper Bay to Thrasher Cove or further along to the Gordon River trailhead gives you two route options. After three kilometres of very challenging rainforest hiking ...
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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 moreBooks About West Coast Trail Shipwrecks
Shipwreck! A Chronicle of Marine Accidents & Disasters in British Columbia by John MacFarlane is a massive book that contains a staggering 1850 of the best documented wrecks and marine disaster in British Columbia. There are an estimated one to three million ...
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The Wreck of the Steamer Valencia, written in 1906 is the result of the intense investigation by US government as directed by President Theodore Roosevelt. The result of the thorough investigation was made into a book widely distributed at the time. It lays out ...
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SOS North Pacific by Gordon R. Newell, published in 1955 is a well written account of many of the most interesting shipwrecks that happened in the North Pacific from Grays Harbor in the United States up to Alaska. The only shipwreck along the West Coast Trail he ...
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R. Bruce Scott's second book, Barkley Sound a History of the Pacific Rim National Park Area is yet another incredible book by Scott and the second in his trilogy of books on the history of the west coast of Vancouver Island. This amazing book published in 1972 has ...
Read moreWest Coast Trail A to Z
The Cape Beale Lighthouse was built in 1873 and lit up the southern tip of the entrance to Barkley Sound. Barkley Sound is the huge gap in Vancouver Island filled with islands, with Ucluelet at the north end of the gap and Bamfield and Cape Beale at the south end. ...
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Cape Flattery Lighthouse is located on the United States side of the entrance to Juan de Fuca Strait. Began operation in 1857, the lighthouse tower is 20 metres tall and standing on a cliff the tower’s light stands 50 metres above the water. Cape Flattery ...
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Along the West Coast Trail you encounter countless deadfall around, over and along the trail. Deadfall is the name for dead and fallen trees and in a West Coast rainforest you see some magnificent examples. The West Coast Trail runs down the stormy West Coast of ...
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The Pachena Point Lighthouse is an interesting bit of west coast history that you can visit. You can only see the grounds outside and not in the lighthouse itself. The view down from the 100 foot cliffs surrounding the lighthouse are beautiful and a vivid look at how ...
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 ...
Read more
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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