Activities: Tofino Hiking Trails

Why not take a walk on the wild side? The Pacific Rim's range of awe-inspiring landscapes and seascapes - from lush, coastal temperate rainforest to rocky headlands or a sandy beach - are easily explored across a variety of nature trails, and you can walk your first trail right at the Inn. Our own "secret garden", the Rainforest Beach Loop Trail, is tucked away by the Beach building, and introduces walkers and hikers to the temperate old growth forests of our West Coast with its towering Western Red Cedar, Sitka spruce, and Western Hemlock. The Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, just a fifteen minute drive from the Inn, offers a number of scenic and informative hiking trails appropriate for novice to intermediate trail walkers. Descend through moss-draped forest to Long Beach on the Schooner Cove Trail, or walk the 2.5 kilometre/1.5 mile (one-way) Nuu Chah Nulth Trail, learning about the coast's indigenous traditions while making your way from Wickaninnish Beach to Florencia Bay - these are two of the many hiking trail options in the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve. Head a little further down the Pacific Rim Highway to neighbouring Ucluelet, home to the picturesque Wild Pacific Trail, which is divided into three phases. It's hard to not fall in love with the 2.5 kilometre/1.5 mile Lighthouse Loop which skirts the rugged coast, allowing for great ocean views with plenty of viewpoints and benches along the beautifully-treed way. This is also a particularly spectacular trail for Winter Storm Watching when the gales of November though February turn the shoreline into a frothy, pounding cornucopia of surf and wave action.

Back in Tofino, kayak or water taxi it across the inlet to Meares Island, and head onto the boardwalk of the Big Tree Trail, home to trees as old as 1800 years and to the famous Hanging Garden Tree, with a circumference of 18.3 metres/60 feet. Hikers who are feeling "up" for a challenge may want to visit the other side of Meares Island to climb (and we mean climb) Lone Cone - ask our Concierge how to gain access to this hike. Then again, you can saunter through the blooming Tofino Botanical Gardens, leading to the Tofino mudflats, home to diverse habitats for a multitude of wildlife species. Did you know that Clayoquot Sound, which includes Tofino and its surrounding waters, as well as the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, was the first UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in BC? In a nutshell, this designation honours the balance between man and nature in our region, which is home to many ecosystems, or in another word, biodiversity.

And then, there are the Tofino beaches: your home base of Chesterman, then Cox Bay, Mackenzie Beach, Tonquin Beach (right in town), the vast Wickaninnish and Long Beaches, and some that you may discover on your own. Walk one, or walk them all - and soak in the beauty, biodiversity, and tranquility of Tofino and Canada's Pacific Rim.

Want to learn more About Tofino Hiking Trails? Allow our Clefs d'Or Concierge to assist you!

Visit These Informative Sites:

• Long Beach Nature Tours www.longbeachnaturetours.com
• Long Beach Maps www.longbeachmaps.com
• Pacific Rim National Park Reserve www.pc.gc.ca/eng/pn-np/bc/pacificrim/index.aspx
• Wild Pacific Trail www.longbeachmaps.com/wildtrail.html
• Tofino Botanical Gardens www.tbgf.org/gardens/index.php
• Tofino Mudflats www.tofinomudflats.com/
• History of the Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Reserve
  www.clayoquotbiosphere.org/biosphere/history.php