Vancouver Island‘s West Coast Trail is an amazing trek, but summertime hikers are finding themselves stranded after unseasonably heavy rainfall has made sections of it impassable.
According to reports, Parks Canada has responded to multiple evacuation requests in the last few days. “Recent heavy rainfall has made sections of the West Coast Trail impassable,” the agency said in a statement Monday. “Creeks and rivers are running high, and more rain is expected through Wednesday. Parks Canada’s Visitor Safety team is responding to a significant number of evacuation requests.” It is urging anyone planning to hike it to wait until at least Thursday.
The West Coast Trail runs nearly 75 kms (nearly 50 miles) along the southwestern coast of Vancouver Island in the Pacific Rim National Park. It’s a multi-day backpacking route that’s not fit for the casual hiker. There are over 100 ladder systems, deep mud — although generally not in July — raging rivers, and, depending on the time of year, that famous Vancouver Island weather that can be, to put it lightly, inclement.
Every year, around 7,500 people hike the trail, although it’s common for many of them not to finish it. The tides in the area require careful monitoring for hikers, as some of the rivers become nearly impossible to cross on foot at high tide. Although summer rain storms aren’t unheard of, the recent downpours in the area have been much heavier than usual.
It usually takes around a week to complete the winding route. Hikers head through temperate rainforests full of towering trees and along whitesand beaches backed by cliffs and sandstone eroded by wind and rain.
Parks Canada is offering full refunds to those who decide to change their plans, and warn that those who don’t should continue “only if fully prepared and self-sufficient, with adequate supplies and rain gear,” and that they should be “prepared to wait several days for water levels to recede, or to self-evacuate through their starting point or Nitinaht Lake.”
