Outdoor Video Magazine

Time: 6-8 hours (dependent on how much playing/investigating you do. It is a beach after all.
Length: 20km
Elevation: Sea-level
Map: None needed. Leaflets from local tourism.
Rating: 7/10

Stretching from Ucluelet to Tofino on Vancouver Island, Long Beach is the most accessible area of the Pacific Rim National Reserve. Long beach itself features a variety of sandy beaches, cobble beaches, rocky headlands and mudflats with sections of beautiful forest featuring sphagnum moss bog, sitka spruce fringe and cedar-hemlock rainforest. Often times Long Beach is swathed in an eerie sea-fret that clears and reforms in seconds mixing bright sunshine with zero visibility mist. It makes for quite the experience though. In terms of hiking, there are 9 marked trails in the Long Beach area, but we decided to have a nice long exploration of the whole beach and hiked one way from an access point at Combers Beach, down to Wickaninnish Headland, round Florencia Bay right down to Halfmoon Bay by Ucluelet. A total of around 20km. Mostly on sand and beaches but with some forest and headland sections at Wickaninnish. It was a pretty tiring way to see it, and was maybe a tad longer than it needed to be (especially when we arrived at the end at 7pm and still had to bike 25km back to the car into a strong head wind!).

It’s definitely worth hiking along Long Beach though, it’s very different from the terrain I’m used to.

So, moving on to Day 3 of the Juan de Fuca (the first part of this post can be found here).

Day 3 - 12km

A nice, easy day of just 12km from Chin Beach to Little Kuitsche Creek campsite. This was a really nice section of the hike, before you reach Sombrio Beach there is a stunning waterfall in a gorgeous little cove, and the trail hugs the shoreline for an extended period. Sombrio Beach itself is a lovely expansive sandy bay that does tend to be VERY busy because of the easy road access. There are some amazing campsites here, but we decided to bypass them because of the crowds. You can do a lot of shore-walking on this section of the hike.

Little Kuitshe Creek campsite is actually tucked away in the forest with some very small, dark, camping pads with no view and no sea access. So why camp there? So we didn’t! With a little bit of beta from some other hikers, we pushed on a few minutes further to Kuitshe Creek itself, where we left the trail and followed the rocky stream bed to a waterfall. An EASY scramble down the side of the waterfall, and you find yourself in Kuitshe Cove. A rock-wall enclosed gravel bay that feels gorgeously secluded. We pitched out tent right on the rocks and enjoyed an amazing evening of solitude in this little bay that looked totally cut off from anything but sea access.

Day 4 - 13km

The final day, Kuitshe Creek to Botanical Beach. The trail finishes with another easy leg, and again there is some nice shore walking to be had on rocky out-crops. An abundance of mussels, seals, and driftwood were to be found. We actually by-passed Botanical Beach because it was high tide. But I hear it is a spectacular place when the tide is down and the rockpools are exposed. We stood in the car park and started to hitchhike. Two of us with huge packs…and it took a little under 25mins for us to get picked up. Not bad huh?

We arrived back at our car to find that a mouse had somehow got trapped in it and had been nibbling food and gear for 4 days. Wonder if it was still alive? We never found it, but left the doors open for a long time so maybe it escaped…..

Time: 3-4 days
Length: 47km
Elevation: Sea-level. But elevation gain around 800m total?
Difficulty: Easy-Medium
Rating: 8/10 (and I’m a mountain lover!)
Map: You can manage with a basic map from any tourist information place that details distances to campsites and road access points. The trail is well marked and easy to follow (in the light!)

The Juan de Fuca is a popular hiking and backpacking trail along the South-Western coast of Vancouver Island. It’s Southern end is located at China Beach, a few km’s West of Jordan River and it finishes 47km further North at Botanical Beach near Port Renfrew. Featuring gorgeous forest, lovely beaches, some rugged coastline, pretty waterfalls and good hiking. Don’t expect wide expanses of sand, and warm, still, crystal blue waters for swimming in though! Although often touted as a wilderness hiking experience…anyone who has done a fair bit of hiking before will realise that the Juan de Fuca is NOT a wilderness experience. The trail covers easy terrain for the most part (the hardest section has some steep ups and downs: the 12km between Bear Beach and Chin Beach) with a bit of mud being your biggest worry (Ok a lot of mud if it’s the wrong time of year). There is also road access at a number of points along the way, so you often bump into toddlers and families along the way (not my idea of a wilderness experience!). Be prepared to meet a lot of people in the popular summer months. This said, it is still a fantastic hike, just not a very wild one.

Because the Juan de Fuca is not a circular hike, you either need two cars, a will to hitchhike (fairly easy), or you can take the shuttle bus that runs from May 1st to Sept. 31st. A pdf of the Juan de Fuca trail map can be found here. And an online version of Walking in British Columbia can be found here.

So I’ll describe how we did the Juan de Fuca, but obviously there are a tonne of options given the spacing of the campsites.

Day 1 - 2km

We started hiking around 8pm (it was August) from the China Beach parking lot, giving us very little light in the dark, dark forest. But that’s OK, we only had an easy 2km to the first campsite at Mystic Beach. But, in the fading light and with the not quite so well marked trail meandering through open trees, previous footprints were hard to find. We suddenly realised we probably weren’t on the trail. But we didn’t know when we’d last been on it either. So we carried on, figuring we knew the general direction we were supposed to be going and the ground was open and easy to cover. But this changed. Thick bushes appeared. And lots of rotting dead fall. And soon, the going was very tough but we’d gone too far to backtrack. We decided to cut to the coast and follow the sea to the campsite. It wasn’t far. But it got worse, and worse. I’ve done some bushwacking before, but this was different. We were progressing at around 500m an hour. The bushes were about 2m high, and the only way to get through was to kind of roll on top of them so you were kinda suspended a metre or so off the ground. When you weren’t doing this you were climbing over, under, along and round huge fallen trees. At one stage a put my foot through such a tree and went up to my thigh in rotting wood. It started getting very dark. We started getting very, very tired and worried. Eventually we came out to the sea, only to find our cunning plan foiled by a 50ft cliff and a waterfall. The beach lurking invitingly below, totally inaccessible. It was a nice moment nonetheless, a tiny rocky ledge, over looking a full moon rising above the Pacific Ocean, a stream of water cascading over the edge. Inpenetrable bush all around us. Just as our hopes were failing, we saw the light of a fire in the distance along the beach…the campsite! With renewed fervour we went back into the bushes, trying to stick close to the edge. Soon it became apparent we were TOO close to the cliff edge, and we were now traversing virtually vertical terrain hanging on bushes and trees. Not good. So we cut inland again. Another 30mins or so of this, and we came back out to the beach, descending the near vertical terrain through thick, thick bushes. The bushes stopped, and revealed the beach below beneath another vertical cliff. But it was impossible to determine how far down it was. It was too dark. I couldn’t get my flashlight out, I was hanging on a tree in a precarious position. I guessed the sand was somewhere between 10feet and 30feet below me. Climbing back up would have been virtually impossible, whereas just dropping to the sand would put us on the beach and within easy walking of the campsite! I elected to drop. It turned out to be around an 18 feet drop. A fair way with a 25kg backpack in the dark. Jane then followed down behind me. We’d made it! We could see the fires further along the beach. Home. Although we did still have the erie experience of nearly walking straight into a huge rotting sea-lion carcass that was on the beach. A good bear attractant I imagine. The easy 2km hike had taken us 3 1/2 hours, and I was more physically exhausted than from any other hike I’ve ever done. Camping at Mystic is on the beach.

Day 2 - 19km

Frm Mystic Beach it is an easy 7km to Bear Beach winding through beautiful trees over bridges and down staircases carved from trees (they’re pretty cool!). It was a relief to be on a trail again. At Bear Beach there is another campsite, but we just elected to have some lunch and press on to the next (smaller) campsite at Chin Beach. The 12km from Bear Beach to Chin Beach were tough, especially considering the bushwacking the day before and the 7km we had done already. There are some gruelling climbs (one particular 135m one) and steep descents for the whole 12km. It’s very energy sapping, but still through some nice forest. When you finally arrive at an emergency shelter in the trees you know it’s all downhill and you’re nearly there.

Chin Beach has a number of camping places nestled in the trees right on the beach side, but sheltered from the wind. It’s a gorgeous spot. Water is available from a small, waterfall at the South end. Camping spots are kind of limited though.

We enjoyed some reading in the evening sun, had a hearty meal and then enjoyed a gorgeous sunset over the Pacific.

Check out part II of the Juan de Fuca trail report for the rest.