Juan De Fuca Trip Report 2022

Juan De Fuca Trip Report 2022

Written by Brianna Ragsdale

We kicked off our summer by hiking the Juan De Fuca Trail on Vancouver Island. This 47 km trail is known for its beautiful beach campsites, vibrant temperate rainforest, stunning rock formations, and of course, lots and lots of mud. It did not disappoint. Here’s an overview of each main spot on the trail:

Botanical Beach – check out the tidepools during low tide

Little Kouche – watch out for bears or Big Foot – I’m sure I saw it here.

 West Sombrio – surfing hotspot

Chin Beach – sea caves

Bear Beach – in the closed section, read below to see how we ended up there

We had originally planned to complete the entire trail, but unfortunately, Chin Beach to China Beach was closed due to storm damage. A lot of the bridges/walkways we had crossed in the “open” section were sketchy enough. We decided not to risk it once we realized how serious an injury could get 10 km into the bush with no road access.

Three of us signed up; we worked well together.

                                             Mona Yu                                    Calista Abuan                            Brianna Ragsdale                                           

When we pulled into the China Beach parking lot, we tried calling the taxi to take us to the other side of the trail, but there was no service. We drove to a local cafe we had passed earlier called “The Cold Shoulder” and asked to use their landline. Turns out, the one taxi driver in all of Sooke was sick that day.

We had two choices:

          1) Hike it backwards and get a taxi back to the car on the last day

                                                             2) Hitchhike

We chose #2. There we were on the side of the road for over an hour with our thumbs up.

When we were close to giving up, Wess and Walter pulled over. Wess was a successful racehorse trainer who’d worked at the Kentucky Derby and Walter was his father who was 89 years old! In Walters’ retirement, he started the “Rainbow Kitchen” (a community kitchen in Victoria). He’d even been awarded Victoria Citizen of the Year for his work there. Botanical Beach was stunning. The tidepools and sea caves were remarkable. We ended up finishing the last 3 km of our 14 km hike that day in the dark. We didn’t put on our gaiters because we didn’t think it would be that muddy. Oops.

All trail access points from the beach were marked by buoys hanging in trees.

Rain was forecasted all 4 days we planned to do this hike, and yet, it was sunny.

There are cougars and bears on the island, avoid hiking in the dark!

We arrived exhausted at the Little Kouche campsite around 9:00 pm.

The next morning we woke up at 8:00 am and hiked 4 km to West Sombrio. The weather was cloudy, but at least it wasn’t pouring rain. While eating lunch under a large tree, a bird pooped directly in the middle of Mona’s head. It was a blessing of good luck that got us through the days to come. Mona didn’t share my positive spirits about the event…

Mona was leading her first VOC trip, and she did a great job. She had printed tidal projections so we always knew when we could hike the beach sections of the trail.

We set up camp at West Sombrio around 5:00 pm.

A great aspect of this trail is that you never worry about finding water. Every hour or so you cross a creek with cold running fresh water. We used a filtration system to purify the water, though it was running fast enough it would have been fine.

Our fearless leader woke us up the next day at 7:15 am because we needed to make tracks to Chin Beach. It was 8 km in the  “difficult section”. Just a heads up to anyone wanting to do this hike in the future: THE DIFFICULTY RANKING IS WRONG. It’s ranked in terms of steepness. The “difficult” 8 km hike we did this day started with an extremely steep slope but it levelled off after 30 minutes for about 2 km. This gives you so much rest time on flat ground that when the next steep part comes you’re chilling.

The first day in the “moderate” section was longer and had tons of ups and downs which in our opinion are more tiresome/difficult.

The hike to Chin Beach was my favourite part.                       The sea caves and rock formations were fantastic.  

Strongylocentrotus Purpuratus
It’s commonly known as a Pacific Purple Sea Urchin.

While we were having lunch on Chin we decided we didn’t want to risk going into the closed section when bridges and ladders were broken. The main factor contributing to this choice was that even in the “open” section we had lost the trail once and had to scale down a rocky cliffside covered in rotting tree roots with our packs on.

 We ran into a lady named Nicole and her dog Blue whom we had briefly encountered on our first day. She had driven to Chin Beach today. She told us that a Park Ranger had told her about a local road access spot to get down to bear beach. We decided to follow Nicole up to the road from Chin Beach and catch a ride with her to Bear Beach. Apparently, Bear Beach was a local surfing hotspot, the trail was on the right and “not steep”. We swapped stories with Nicole and she shared advice with us. We were searching for the mythical trail to Bear Beach for just over two hours when we decided to go back to her vehicle. I was disappointed but not surprised as we were following word of mouth.

Luckily (due to the bird pooping on Mona’s head), when we got to the road, a truck full of young surfer boys pulled up.

After bidding Nicole farewell we followed the boys back into the woods.

We were close to finding the path before but this trail was unmarked and incredibly steep. Bear Beach was stunning and well worth the wild goose hunt it took to get there. I borrowed the surfers’ hatchet to attempt to collect firewood. This campsite had a bear cash, rope swing, was beachside, had a creek nearby, and an outhouse all within a 2-minute walking distance from where we set up camp. After feasting on the remains of our food, we set up a fire and after the third try, IT CAUGHT. We found some dry rope on the beach and my goodness did it burn well. Our fire was throwing much-needed heat. We dried out all our wet gear while listening to the waves crashing onto the shore. Lady luck was on our side today.

On our last morning, we arose at 5:40 am in an attempt to witness the sunrise. Today was a rainy day. We made a fire to warm up and took in the beauty of the West Coast while heating up breakfast. At 9:15 am we hiked 1.5 km out of  Bear Beach following a stream up to the top of an overhanging cliffside. If you ever find yourself trying to find Bear Beach from the road; don’t go in blind. Ask a local, otherwise, you will get lost following the 7+ coloured markers on every other tree. There is zero consistency to the markers and you’ll just end up lost. Remember: the real path has no markers!

When we climbed up to the top we were warm from the inclination, but it was pouring rain so we knew to put on all our layers immediately. We suited up and sat on the side of the road. Once again, thanks to the bird that pooped on Mona’s head all that time ago, we had luck on our side. The first truck to pass us pulled over. It was an attractive blonde named Jaxon no less. He was an engineer who’d taken a few gap years to surf in Africa and other parts of the world. He told Calista how beautiful her name was. He took us all the way back to our car and told us we smelled bad. I honestly couldn’t believe how positive our hitchhiking experiences this trip had been. We stopped at the Cold Shoulder Cafe on the way home and thanked them for letting us use their landline.

Special thanks to Mona Yu for planning this stunning last-minute adventure.