Canada Weather

West Coast Trail – British Columbia, Canada

West Coast Trail – British Columbia, Canada

The West Coast Trail is located on the Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. It’s the third and southern most part of the pristine Pacific Rim National Park and is considered one of the best multi-day hikes in the world.

Stretching for more than 75 kilometers, the West Coast Trail weaves along the rocky and rugged shores from Bamfield, BC to Port Renfrew on the western shores of Vancouver Island. This is a remote location about 2 hours from the capital city of Victoria, BC and is exposed to strong winds and surging tides. Under the protection of Parks Canada, the area is home to some of the oldest trees in the world and is a haven for cougar, black bear and hundreds of species of birds on the Pacific Flyway. Just offshore, migrating Orca and humpback whales feed in the fertile waters.

Thousands of hikers from all over the world come to experience the nearly untouched area and to camp under some of the last remaining ancient forests of the world. To limit the amount of damage to the ecosystem, Parks Canada restricts the amount of trekkers on the West Coast Trail. Permits are required for all hikers (1-800-425-5622 or 1-250-387-1642).

The trail is opened from May 1 to September 30. It’s recommended to attempt the hike in September when the summer crowds thin out and the weather is warm and dry.

The West Coast Trail is hard but not too difficult to complete. In sections, people will be pushed to their physical limits as they encounter:

towering ladders that take you down deep gorges and up the other side.
thick, lush forests with trees wider than cars.
deep creeks and trenches that you’ll cross on fallen logs with no handrails.
endless sandy beaches with the mighty Pacific surf at your footstep.
rocky coastal shelves teaming with sea creatures in the intertidal zone.
unobstructed gale-force winds that blow ashore during a Pacific storm.
mud, oh the mud, deep and thick and unavoidable on the trail.

The West Coast Trail was cut through the wilds more than a century ago to help rescuers reach survivors from the numerous shipwrecks that occurred in the Graveyard of the Pacific. Over 60 ships met their demise off the west coast of Vancouver Island and the fortunate survivors who reached land followed the Lifesaving Trail to safety.  Today, it’s known as the West Coast Trail.

The West Coast Trail can be hiked in either direction.  The northern end is easy for the last 5 kilometers while the south end is twisty, muddy and filled with tree roots and steep sections. Hiking during the off-season is not recommended because of bad trail conditions, heavy storms and a lack of readily available rescue personnel.

The West Coast Trail Information Centre (Pachena Bay) is open daily during the regular season and can be reached at 1-250-728-3234.

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Weather and Latitude are Not Allies

Weather and Latitude are Not Allies

There may be a popular assumption that if you move to higher latitudes (toward the poles) you can escape the heat, and that by moving to lower latitudes (toward the equator) you can escape the cold.

The equation is simple. But is it real? If it was, then the most northerly capital, Reykjavik, would also be the coldest…at the very least until they establish a country on Antarctica. Yes, it appears that latitude is slacking off and failing to keep temperatures in line.

This was brought home to me when preparing for a radio interview in Dublin, Ireland. February had just roiled in and I was sitting back comfortably in my good old glacial Ottawa, Canada, weather, scraping icicles off my toes. I was giddy with excitement through our warm spell, which it was reaching a high of minus-5 (that’s about 20-degrees American). I always ask questions the day before an interview, to learn a bit about my audience, so I asked the producer, “So what’s the weather forecast for Dublin, Ireland?” asked.

“Oh it’s horrible,” she told me. “People are bracing for a deep winter freeze that’s supposed to hit tonight. It might even get as cold as minus-5!”

This blew me away, that the folks in Dublin would be worried about the thermometer dips as low as ours spikes high. After all, isn’t Dublin about the same latitude as Ottawa?

Weather forecast from an atlas

I whipped out my trusty atlas. We live almost exactly around the 45th parallel. If we lived exactly on it, we would have to share our bed with a cow and a dozen chickens across the road – that’s how close we are.

I turned the pages to find Ireland. Could I have been mistaken? Is Dublin really quite south of us? No, it turns out that Dublin lies at the 53rd parallel. Hey! They should be getting colder weather than us. That’s not fair.

The weather is not fair. Dublin is way to the North of us, so why do we get all the cold?

I decided to take a peak at a few other pages of my atlas. Lo and behold, Venice can also be to the 45th parallel. Let me tell you that the weather forecast for Venice, Italy never calls for getting buried in snow for three or four months of your year…unless you happen to become viewing “The Day After Tomorrow”. In fact, the average temperature in Venice in January is +1 (that’s about 34-degrees American).

Hmm. I wondered what else lay along the 45th parallel. The French Riviera. Not too much ice going on there. Portland, Oregon. I checked the Portland, USA, weather forecast. Yup, same as Venice in January. And Sevastapol, Urkaine, also with January temperatures near Venice.

In fact, no other well-populated area with the world endures so much cold (except parts of Russia, but numerous of those people can’t afford the taxi fare to go somewhere else).

So why do so lots of people with so much wealth live in like an inhospitable climate? I don’t know. Maybe we are waiting for latitude to correct this little anomaly.

Or maybe our brains are simply frozen. Or maybe that’s why so lots of people around here head south to enjoy that warm Orlando, Florida, weather forecast.

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