emailFeature Hike
East Sooke Regional Park
East Sooke Regional Park Coast Trail
Trail Rating: Challenging
Approximate Hiking Time: 6 – 8 hours one way
Caution
This is a long and strenuous hike. Make sure to leave enough time to complete your hike before dusk. The easiest way to return to the Pike Road starting point at the end of the hike is to leave a second car at the Aylard Farm parking area, or arrange to be picked up. There is no public transportation between the Aylard Farm and Pike Road parking areas.
Highlights
East Sooke's Coast Trail is considered one of the premiere day hikes in Canada — a West Coast wilderness experience within easy reach of the city. The 10 kilometre trail is rough and winding, a challenging 6 – 8 hour trip even for experienced hikers.
The Hike
Begin your hike at the Pike Road parking area, and take the trail to Iron Mine Bay. The forest is thick with Douglas-fir, western hemlock, and closer to shore, Sitka spruce. The route to the small, horseshoe-shaped bay is lush with mosses, ferns and shrubs like fruit-bearing salmonberry.
Heading east along the Coast Trail, you pass sharp cliffs where pelagic cormorants roost. Watch them swoop and dive for food, then fly back to their rocky homes. Later, stop at Cabin Point, where a small trap shack is testimony to a fishing past.
As you travel the trail, look for native plants as old as time — kinnikinnick, Oregon grape and salal — surviving despite the harsh wind and salt spray.
Continue east to Beechey Head. Here the wild and beautiful coastline is marked by jagged bluffs, a reminder of the ageless struggle between land and sea. Beechey Head is also a well known site for observing the annual fall hawk migration.
Feel the presence of the Coast Salish people at Alldridge Point, designated as a Provincial Heritage Site in 1927. Here you'll see petroglyphs bruised into the rock, a style particular to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Near the end of the Coast Trail is Creyke Point, a rocky headland of unusual shapes against emerald green water.
Your hike ends at Aylard Farm. A heritage apple orchard and cleared pasture are all that remain of the last settlement. Where livestock once grazed, meadows are now sweet with clover, wild rose and blue-eyed grass. At dusk, black-tailed deer wander in from the surrounding forest to feed.
Option
For a shorter hike, follow a portion of the Coast Trail, then return to the parking area via an interior trail.