Extremely fun hike about 1 hour through trails, streams, mud and trees to get to Mystic Beach. About 1.5-2 hours out from Victoria proper and worth every minute. Lovely breeze
You have to do this road to realize what a feat it was to engineer it and build it. WOW. If you are tough enough to drive this, you can do anything
My ex Girlfriend and I walked this trail in the pouring rain alone and LOVED IT!! Not a soul around. This is all second growth so don't expect ant huge trees because logging has taken almost every one. Fun for beach and forest lovers alike. Rushing streams and even the occasional pensive glimpse of wildlife. Not The west coast trail but worth it none the less. Camping allowed but bring your raingear. We always went in the late winter or early spring. No crowds. Be aware that on Vancouver Island at high season you will not be alone. We travelled all over Vancouver Island and The Queen Charlotte Islands. This is a great start if you want to see what remains of the wilderness in BC. You will see nature and be very safe.
Hiked this a the end of October, the trail maintenance leaves quite a lot to be desires, it's falling to bits, non existent (or lying upside down at bottom of a cliff), bridges broken in half and sometimes really hard to find! This all adds to the fun and adventure...clambering up tree roots and waist deep in mud in the torrential rain which actually flooded out my sleeping area on multiple occasions, testing the waterproof level of the gear I borrowed (not water proof AT ALL! EEP!!).
I actually 'woke up' one morning bright and early having done my best to stay centered in tent andnot touch the sides all night to discover that the tent was literally floating like a water bed and everything touching the boom of tent was soaking up water, I instantly regretted my choice to overpack with clothing (which is something I do a LOT) my pack literally weighing 100 or so kilos, not fun when climbing up and down the rollercoaster mudslide trail.
That said I doid love it and have amazing photos of this amaazzzzing trail, I enjoyed the fact that there weren't many people as it was off season, however there is a reason his is off season!
The tides made things tricky and cut short a few days.
There was tonnes of wildlife to view and could hear the whales singing and watch the sea otters and seals playing and observing our movements on the shore.
The little cabin was pretty cute, a welcome find when absolutely everything was soaked and covered in mud, and some of the stories on the walls were entertaining.
I plan to do this again as well as the other hikes I intended to do at a better time of year.
Getting to the trail via hitch hiking was surprisingly easy, there is no public transport in the off season. I can see how on a bad day the hitch hiking might not be so easy going especially if the weather is bad.
The surfers that frequent the local beaches are really awesome and helpful to hikers.
My daughter (21) and I hiked the JDF in mid Sept. in 4 days and 3 nights and had fantastic weather. We started at China Beach at approx. 11:00 am on the first day and went to Bear Beach where we spent the night. Day 2 we went to China Beach and spent the night there, day 3 we made it to Little Kuitshe and day 4 we headed for Port Renfrew. This spaced out the hiking nicely and gave us time at each location to relax. the last day was the longest but it was mostly moderate level hiking. You need to have a decent fitness level and the proper gear to complete it as parts of the trail are challenging and there are quite a few ravines to traverse. My recommendation is to try to plan to go when the weather is good, I did it about 6 years ago in a torrential downpour and it was really tough. Very muddy and you could not dry out. It is a pretty muddy in areas when it is dry. We parked at China Beach and had prearranged for the JDF/ West coast Trail shuttle bus to take us back to our car. - we just had to be in Port Renfrew for a 5:45 pm pick up - right by the pub (handy)
I highly recommend this trail and will probably do it again.
