Getting to the West Coast Trail

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. Others take the West Coast Express bus from Victoria to one of the trailheads and take the same bus back to Victoria.

Hike the West Coast Trail

Day 1 Pachena to Darling Day 2 Darling to Tsusiat Day 3 Tsusiat to Carmanah Day 4 Carmanah to Walbran Day 5 Walbran to Cullite Day 6 Cullite to Camper Day 7 Camper to Thrasher Michigan Creek at 12k Darling River at 14k Orange Juice Creek at 15k Tsocowis Creek at 16.5k Klanawa River at 23k Tsusiat Falls at 25k Cribs Creek at 42k Carmanah Creek at 46k Bonilla Creek at 48k Walbran Creek at 53k Cullite Cove at 58k Camper Bay at 62k Thrasher Cove at 70k

The West Coast Trail Express

West Coast Trail Express Inc. provides shuttle bus service(May 1 to September 30) from Victoria and Nanaimo to the trailheads and between the trailheads of the West Coast Trail and the Juan de Fuca Trail. The West Coast Trail Bus picks up and drops off passengers at Victoria, Sooke, Port Renfrew, Gordon River, Mesachie Lake, Honeymoon Bay, Nanaimo, Nitinat, Pachena Bay, and Bamfield. In 2017 the prices were $110 Victoria to Pachena Bay, $90 Port Renfrew to Pachena Bay. These prices may seem expensive on first glance, however the route covers quite a distance of brutal logging roads. After you take into account of how much damage you saved on your own vehicle, the prices look pretty good!

West Coast Trail Express Bus (Victoria, Nanaimo, Bamfield, Nitinaht Junction, Port Renfrew)
Toll-free: 1-888-999-2288
Website: trailbus.com/

Reservations can be made using a Visa or Mastercard. Online - by using the secure reservation page online at trailbus.com Phone - by calling us toll free from anywhere in Canada at 1-888-999-2288, or at our Victoria office at 250-477-8700. Individuals can save 20%, groups can save 40%, on return fares by making return trip reservations. Changes to reservations can be made up to the reservation date with no penalty. Changes made within 10 days of the reservation date are subject to availability. If seats are not available for the new date, you can cancel your reservation ( the cancellation policy will apply ), or you can receive a credit for your fare which must be used in the same calendar year. Cancellations require 10 days notice to receive a complete refund(less a $5.00 administration fee). Cancellations received with less than 10 days notice will be charged 10% per day ( example: 9 days notice = 90% return, 8 days notice = 80% return, etc.) There will be no refund when no notice is given to the West Coast Trail Express Office. Hikers with reservations, finishing the trail any day before their return reservation date, and up to 2 days after, have priority seating on the bus. They are given seats on the bus before anyone without reservations. This is not a guarantee that these hikers will have a seat. If the bus is fully booked, and there are no seats available, these hikers will have to wait for the bus on the following day. We advise anyone who is going to be early or late to call our office and give us notice. The more notice we have, the more likely we can have seats available.

Getting to the West Coast Trail - Map

Ferry Services

Butch Jack Hiker Ferry Services (Gordon River Trailhead)
Tel: 250-647-5517 / 250-647-5434
Email: [email protected]

Lady Rose Marine Services (Passenger Ferry from Port Alberni to Bamfield)
Tel: 250-723-8313
Toll-free: 1-800-663-7192
Website: ladyrosemarine.com

Nitinaht Lake Water Taxi / Nitinaht Wilderness Charters / Parking at Nitinaht
Tel: 250-745-3509

WCT Information Centres

Information Centre
Tel: 250-728-3234 (Pachena Bay)
Tel: 250-647-5434 (Gordon River)

Ditidaht First Nations Visitor Centre and Store (Nitinaht Village)
Tel: 250-745-3999

Trail Accommodation

West Coast Trail Comfort Camping
Ditidaht First Nation – Ditidaht Development Corporation
Website: westcoasttrail.com
Email: [email protected]

Tel: 250-710-4453 (Hike)

Air Services

Pacific Seaplanes (Bamfield, Barclay Sound, Ucluelet, Tofino, Port Alberni, Port Renfrew, Nanaimo, Victoria and Vancouver)
Tel: 250-616-5858
Website: pacificseaplanes.biz

Taxi Services

Bamfield Taxi
Tel: 250-728-3363

Road Conditions

Road Reports
Toll-free: 1-800-550-4997 (automated)
Toll-free: 1-800-661-2324 (person answers)
Website: drivebc.ca

Weather & Marine Conditions

Weather Forecast
VHF Channel: 21 B
Tel: 250-726-3415 (automated forecast)
Website: weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca

Marine Weather
Website: weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/marine

Tides
Website: waterlevels.gc.ca/eng/find/zone/11

Fishing and Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning Information 24 hour line
Tel: 604-666-2828
Toll-free: 1-866-431-3474
Website: dfo-mpo.gc.ca

The West Coast Trail

Prologue 1: The West Coast Trail 2: When to Hike & Fees 3: Trailheads 4: Getting There 5: Considerations 6: Campsites 7: Shipwrecks 8: Routes

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 ...

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 ...

Day 5 on the West Coast Trail is a stunning, very difficult and tremendously enjoyable day of hiking. Walbran Creek is gorgeous campsite to wake up to. Your tent will open up to a sweeping view of ...

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 ...

All West Coast Trail Itineraries

Cullite Cove is a wonderful campsite on the West Coast Trail at the 58 kilometre mark. One of the nicest campsites you will find on the WCT. It has everything, a lovely wooded area with clearings for tents and campfires. Stunning views all around. A terrific, ...

The Bonilla Creek campsite at 48km on the West Coast Trail is easy to miss, as it looks very unassuming from the beach. Most hikers pass by Bonilla Falls, which is nestled against a small cliff at the edge of a suddenly deep forest. And the forest hides a nice ...

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 ...

The Pachena Bay Campground is the closest campsite to the Pachena trailhead, not on the West Coast Trail, but near the trailhead.. Located on the far end of Pachena Beach, and about a 10 minute walk from the trailhead and the West Coast Trail registration building. ...

All West Coast Trail Campsites

The Uncle John was a 138 foot, three masted barkentine of 314 tons. Built in Eureka, California in 1881 and wrecked one kilometre east of Tsusiat Falls on the West Coast Trail. She was inbound in ...

The Revere shipwreck lays at the bottom of Port San Juan between Thrasher Cove and Owen Point. Thrasher Cove is the first or last West Coast Trail campsite you will encounter. She was a large 3 ...

The Alaskan was a small, wooden hulled steamship of 150 tons built in Oregon in 1886. She was owned by a Vancouver freight company and was on route to Kildonan in Barkley Sound with 100 tons of box ...

At the 37 kilometre mark on the West Coast Trail you will pass the Santa Rita, a 100 year old shipwreck hidden under the waves. The Santa Rita was a steel steam schooner, built in San Francisco in ...

The Raita shipwreck is located off the reefs at about the 33 kilometre mark of the West Coast Trail. Located just offshore and most remnants of this wreck are hidden under the waves. Some of the ...

All West Coast Trail Shipwrecks

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

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

HikeWCT.com

The West Coast Trail

West Coast Trail Shipwrecks

Hike the West Coast Trail

The West Coast Trail Express

Ferry Services

WCT Information Centres

Trail Accommodation

Air Services

Taxi Services

Road Conditions

Weather & Marine Conditions

The West Coast Trail