Victoria has a staggering number of hiking trails that almost always reach something amazing.. and radically different. From Goldstream Park's spawning salmon to the marvellous Goldstream Train Trestle. You can hike dozens of beautiful, coastal kilometres in Juan de Fuca Provincial Park and East Sooke Regional Park. Victoria is a hiker's paradise.
TheWestCoastTrail
The West Coast Trail traces a route along a 75 kilometre section of Vancouver Island's hostile west coast. The trail looks over the Graveyard of the Pacific, home to hundreds of shipwrecks over the centuries. The Graveyard of the Pacific necessitated the construction of the West Coast Trail to save lives from the frequent shipwrecks.
Hot Springs Cove is a wonderful day trip from Tofino. Lots of whale watching companies offer whale watching/hot springs tours for very reasonable prices. The boat ride is out on the open ocean is quite fun and there is a fair bit to see, not least the whales that you hopefully encounter. The hot springs themselves are wonderful, and the 25 minute (1.2 kilometre) walk to them is unexpectedly beautiful and interesting.
Intricate cedar boardwalks and bridges move you up and through massive trees and wind through the forest. Years of interesting carvings into the boardwalk planks adorn the route. Hundreds of names of visiting people, groups, and vessels, give the walkway a historic and artistic feel to it. Along the boardwalk there are a couple very nice viewpoints looking out to the ocean beyond the forest.
Upon reaching the hot springs there are some nice, beautifully built, cedar changing rooms and yet another viewpoint. Finally a short path takes you to the hot springs. Flowing through fissures in the rock the amazing 50 degree water (122F) flows from a small waterfall and continues through five wonderfully natural pools that lead to the ocean. Ocean waves occasionally burst into the lower pools in a wonderful contrast of breathtaking cold and wonderful warm water.
Goldstream Provincial Park and Mount Finlayson are beautiful places that are definitely a must-see on any visit to Victoria. Huge coastal rainforest trees ...
Huge Douglas-fir trees and tremendous views are the highlights of this beautiful Provincial Park just 30 minutes from downtown Victoria, near Sidney. ...
East Sooke Regional Park is a convenient and easily accessible way to experience the wild, west coast of Vancouver Island. Weather blasted rocky cliffs, ...
Thetis Lake Regional Park is a very popular Victoria park that contains several lakes. Lower Thetis Lake, Upper Thetis Lake, Prior Lake and further out, ...
The Nuu-chah-nulth (aka the Wickaninnish Trail), has the amazing distinction among all the other beach hikes in the Tofino-Ucluelet corridor, in that it is flanked ...
Meares Island was the centre of dispute in the 80's when the Nuu-chah-nulth protested Macmillan Bloedel's intent to log the island. The Nuu-chah-nulth ...
Radar Beach is one of the countless places that makes this part of the world so amazing. It is difficult to get to due to it having an unmarked trailhead, ...
When shipping in and out of Juan de Fuca Strait rapidly increased in the mid 1800's and alarming and costly number of ships were lost, the need for a ...
The West Coast Trailis incredible. Everything about it is amazing. From the wildly, incomprehensibly enormous trees to endless jaw dropping views. And ...
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 ...
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. ...
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 ...
The West Coast Trailis 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. ...