I've been thinking about which hike to write about this week, and since we were already talking about a Vancouver Island coastal hike week, I thought it would be fitting to talk about another Vancouver Island coastal hike. Before I start on this week's topic, I would like to mention that I forgot to talk about the famous Juan de Fuca Trail in last week's post. The trailhead of Botanical Beach shares the same northwest trailhead as the Juan de Fuca Trail, a famous backpacking hiking trail that is 40km long, with 1400m elevation gain, usually done over multiple days. If you are up for an epic adventure, be sure to check out the Juan de Fuca Trail.

Moving onto this week's hike, which is probably more of a walk. This week, we are headed to the Lighthouse Loop portion of the Wild Pacific Trail. The Wild Pacific Trail is divided into a few sections, and we visited the Lighthouse Loop section at the southern tip of Ucluelet, BC, back in the summer of 2021. The Lighthouse Loop is an easy loop trail that is roughly 3km long with minimal elevation gain. The loop traverses through a coastal forest and passes by numerous viewpoints that showcases the Pacific Ocean as its primary view. It also passes by a lighthouse, which is probably what gave the trail its name. We went on this trail during our camping trip at Pacific Rim National Park.

Map of the Wild Pacific Trail at the trailhead. Lighthouse Loop is shown at the far right with the "You are here" marker.

Little one fell asleep during the car ride from the campsite to the trail. He is such a deep sleeper that he continued to sleep even after I transferred him over from the car to the carrier.

Trees growing in weird shapes probably due to coastal winds.

Pacific Ocean.

Lighthouse in sight.

Sign with name of the trail and getting closer to the lighthouse.

More views of the Pacific Ocean. You cannot see the end of the ocean and can only see the horizon far into the background.

Trail leading back to the parking lot. The trees formed a short tunnel.

For all of my previous posts, I try to stay on topic and only show pictures of the hike being talked about. But Long Beach of Pacific Rim National Park must be mentioned, so here I am going off topic and off the Lighthouse Loop. The best way to visit Long Beach is by camping at the Green Point Campground. It is the ony campground located in the Long Beach area and beach access through the campground are limited only to campers. This means the section of Long Beach near the campground is much less crowded. My kids had so much fun playing at the beach, it was incredible. And in terms of the view, I will just let the pictures speak for itself.

These two pictures were taken in the afternoon.

These two pictures were taken at sunset.

Check out my previous hikes: