The Shorepine Bog trail and Wickaninnish beach are very close to each other in Pacific Rim National Park Reserve. We visited both on the same afternoon. It’s a perfect Tofino adventure showing off both the interesting broccoli-like trees of the bog, and the  picturesque scenery of Wickaninnish Beach, Kwisitis Beach and South Beach. If you spend time in Tofino or Ucluelet, these trails are worth a visit!

Trail map

Shorepine Bog

Distance: 800m
Elevation gain: 10m (basically none)
Time: 10-20 mins (we recorded 14 mins on strava)
What to bring: This is such a short trail, you don’t need anything.

Wickaninnish Beach & South Beach Trail

Distance: 4.5 km (or more if you hike further along the beach.)
Elevation gain: 100m-ish
Time: 1.5-2 hours (we recorded 1.5 hours moving time on strava)
What to bring: The 10 Essentials and swimming things

Cost: These are both inside a Canadian National Park, so you need to purchase a parks pass.
Facilities: Toilets at the car park for Wickaninnish Beach or Kwisitis Visitor Centre. Restaurant at the visitor centre.
Dogs: Dogs allowed on leads on both trails
How hard is it? Super easy. Both trails are easy to follow and have decent signs and information boards so you’re unlikely to get lost.

Shorepine Bog Trail

This short trail will take you into old growth temperate rainforest that is not quite like any other BC forest. The pines are short and look a bit like broccoli. This is because the soil is acidic and does not drain well, so doesn’t provide sufficient nutrients for the trees to grow tall.

The smallness of the trees hides their age. The tallest pines are up to a few meters high, but some are over 300 years old. In addition to the cool trees, you’ll see pretty flowers like bog laurel and sundew (a carnivorous plant that eats insects like mosquitoes and ants.)

The trail around the bog is a loop, and has a slightly rickety boardwalk the whole way.

Wickaninnish Beach

This beach is stunning! It is a long (8km, so 16km return if you walk to the end and back.) I love that it is lined by temperate rain forest with mountains off in the distance.

Wickaninnish Beach details

Location: Halfway between Tofino and Ucluelet, within the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve.
Parking: From the Pacific Rim Highway, turn onto Wick Road for the visitor parking. There is loooooads of parking in 5 lots (A-E.) We parked in C.
Facilities: Public washrooms at the car park, picnic benches plus Kwisitis Visitor Centre on the beach with a restaurant and gift shop. K^wisitis means “other end of the beach” in the local Nuu-chah-nulth language. First Nation Elders, leaders and community members worked with Parks Canada to design authentic exhibits for the Visitor Centre.

Wickaninnish beach is popular for swimming, surfing and beachcombing. If you decide to swim here, be ready for cold water and be very careful of rip currents. If you feel like you are being dragged out to sea by a rip current, swim parallel to the shore before attempting to swim back to the beach.

We visited in the springtime when it was a bit too chilly to swim, so we went for a walk instead.

South Beach trail

This is a gooorgeous trail past Kwisitis beach down to South Beach. We joined the trail at the south end of Wickaninnish Beach, where there is a totem pole with a smiling bear munching on salmon.

Kwisitis beach

The first beach along the way is small, but pretty. Kwisitis Beach is surrounded by rocks so sheltered with dark, shell-filled sand. On google maps, this one is called Lismer Beach.

The edge of Kwisitis Beach has thousands of mussel shells. It made me wonder if this was an old shell midden, as there were sooo many! We also found what seemed to be little white egg sacks on the beach. Do you know what they are?

Kwisitis Beach is lined by sun-bleached logs, so we clambered over those to return to the South Beach trail. The trail is easy to follow with boardwalks. There is a little elevation gain with some steps as you need to hike over a bump to reach the next beach.

South Beach

This is another stunner. South Beach is a mix of sand and small pebbles, and surrounded by rock formations that you can climb on to see the beautiful waves.

I couldn’t resist climbing up on to the rocks to stare at the waves. This might be a small beach, but it was quiet, and just lovely.

 

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I can imagine this would be an incredible place for storm watching as the waves were amazing, even on a calm day.

Other hikes

There is another hiking trail called the Nuu-chah-nulth trail that turns off between Kwisitis Beach and South Beach. If you want to walk further, that one connects to Florencia Bay Beach. Or, if you’re ready you can head back to Wickaninnish Beach the way you came.

Other beaches near Tofino

The beaches near Tofino are just fabulous. The two below are Tinwis (Mackenzie Beach) and Chesterman Beach.

Pacific Rim National Park Reserve is such a beautiful area! These were all quite short walks but I loved every moment of the Shorepine Bog trail, Wickaninnish Beach and the trail to South Beach via Kwisitis Beach. The trail was quiet and relaxing and had such spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean. Click on the pins below to save this for later.