Hiking Raft Cove

May 13, 2025May 9, 2025 / Maria / Leave a comment

Seth and I finished hiking out from San Josef Bay around 11:30am on Easter Sunday (see previous post). Our friends departed earlier in the morning because they had to return to work on Monday. Lucky for us, we had one more day off, so we planned to explore further around the backcountry!

I shared in my previous post that there is 65km of gravel roads connecting Port Hardy and San Josef Bay. The main road to San Jo is really only the tip of the iceberg in this area and there’s an extensive network of forestry roads connecting all around the north part of the island. You do have to be careful driving around though because there is active logging happening. I don’t believe there’s logging on the main road, but if you’re on one of the branch roads on a weekday, you should use a radio.

The town of Holberg is a central location connecting several of these roads. It’s really just a small community that I’m assuming is mostly loggers and truckers, but they do have a small restaurant called the Scarlet Ibis that is worth checking out along the way! Other options are taking the FSR’s down to Winter Harbour or Grant Bay, which I haven’t had the opportunity of visiting.

Our route was a little bit different. In exploring other options for backpacking in the area, I discovered Raft Cove. It’s another beautiful golden sand beach that’s located down Ronning Main, which branches off San Jo Main a few kilometres before you get to the trailhead. It’s about a 30-45 minute drive from the San Jo parking lot, depending how fast you drive on the sketchy roads. We did the drive to San Jo Bay as a convoy of two vehicles, which I prefer in case you have car troubles. But our friends had left, so I was a little bit nervous about driving down Ronning Main on our own.

Fortunately, our experience was that Ronning Main was actually in better condition than San Jo Main and we drove slow with no issues. We even saw a black bear on the road along the way! Ronning Main continues to Cape Palmerston, which we didn’t visit, but a few kilometres before the end of the road, there’s a small parking lot for Raft Cove. There were only 3 other cars when we visited, so it’s not a very popular location.

The trail to Raft Cove is 2km through the woods and then 1km along the beach to the campsite. So it’s a similar distance to the trail at San Jo Bay, but it’s in very different condition. The 2km through the forest are much more emblematic of what I experienced on the North Coast Trail. It’s a muddy trail through the woods, with lots of technical sections. Some of the reviews online are pretty intense – I didn’t find the trail all that bad, but maybe I was just prepared for a rough trail and it met my expectations. It took us ~45 minutes to reach the beach on the way in and closer to an hour on the way back.

Dogs are permitted at San Jo Beach and Raft Cove, but definitely exercise caution. Both beaches are in bear, wolf, and cougar territory, so always keep them leashed. We did let Sadie run a little bit on the wide open empty beach, but we kept her very close to us (and leashed) on the trail. The trail hikes up and over and small headland, so be prepared for a little bit of elevation gain. Sadie loves technical trails, the muddier the better, so she had a blast!

Raft Cove is breathtaking. I’ve heard it described as “San Jo Bay without the tourists” and that was pretty accurate to our experience. The beach is over a kilometre long and it was completely empty when we arrived. We lucked out and it was low tide, so we checked out the tide pools and sea arches along the coast before walking down the beach. There’s a campsite at the end of the beach where the Macjack River meets the ocean. We encountered a few other people and learned that a slightly more popular way to visit Raft Cove is to paddle ~5km along the Macjack River to the campsite. Accessing the put-in seems slightly more challenging though. I did some research and it looks like you have to take the road to Winter Harbour out of Holberg instead, and then drive up along Topknot Main to the parking lot. I don’t know anything about the condition of the road, but it looks to be a bit of a longer drive.

In my original itinerary for the trip, I planned for us to spend our last night camping at Raft Cove. I’m sad we never ended up doing it because it’s a beautiful place to stay, but we changed our visit to a day trip instead. Our ferry reservation had gotten moved earlier, to 3pm, and it would be way too exhausting to have to hike out 3km in the morning, drive 2.5 hours on gravel road, and then still have to drive 4 hours from Port Hardy back to Nanaimo. So we made the most of the visit as a day trip and really enjoyed the solitude along the beach. Always leave something to come back for right?

Instead, we hiked back to the parking lot, returning to our car around 4pm. We wanted to get most of the gravel road done to save ourselves the trouble on Monday morning. Seth drove all weekend and did a great job navigating all the potholes. I have to conclude that he is a better driver than Brandon, because we didn’t get any flat tires on our trip!

It was over 2 hours to drive back and ~5km before exiting the gravel road, we turned off on Georgie Main to drive 6km down to Georgie Lake Rec Site. I slept at Nahwitti Lake Rec Site for a night when we had the flat tire, but that campsite is now listed online as closed due to dangerous trees. It didn’t appear closed from the road, so I’m not sure how recent that information is. In any case, I wanted to try a new rec site and we decided to try for a site at Georgie Lake instead. Georgie Main is in worse condition than the main road, but still doable in any vehicle, there’s just a lot of potholes.

There are currently two old campers taking up the two large spots at the back of the site. Neither is occupied, so I’m not sure if someone is just storing them there or if they’re abandoned. Fortunately, there’s 5 much nicer sites down by the lake and only one was occupied when we arrived. Shortly after us, 3 more vehicles arrived and we thought all the sites were taken, but two of the vehicles were just using the rec site for day use and had a fire down by the lake. So in total, 3 sites were occupied on Easter Sunday of the long weekend, so I think it’s reasonably reliable that you could get an impromptu site here. We weren’t there for a long time, only for one night, but we enjoyed a beautiful sunset over the lake before heading to bed.

We were up early again on our final day to drive back to Nanaimo. It didn’t take us too long to exit the gravel road and then it was smooth pavement all the way to Nanaimo! We stopped briefly in Port MacNeil for a sink bath and then had a delicious meal at The Fork and Arrow in Campbell River. It was a great trip and I’m glad I got to visit two beautiful beaches. There’s still a lot more to do in this area, but I’ll probably give it another 5 years before I return to tackle more attractions. There’s always something exciting to explore in BC!

San Josef Bay Backpacking Trip

May 7, 2025May 1, 2025 / Maria / 4 Comments

If you’ve been following my blog for awhile, you might be aware that I first attempted to visit San Josef Bay in 2020. I backpacked both the Cape Scott Trail and the North Coast Trail in June 2020, but thanks to a series of misadventures at the start of my trip, I had to cut San Josef Bay from the itinerary. A few years ago I saw San Josef Bay ranked on a list of the “most beautiful beaches in the world” and it’s been haunting me ever since that I still haven’t been there!

So this was a bit of a redemption trip for me. Over the Easter long weekend in April, I decided it was finally time to tackle San Josef Bay. It’s located on the far eastern coast of Vancouver Island and it is a journey to get there. I left Vancouver on Thursday after work with my husband, Seth, and our anxious Australian Shepherd, Sadie. We had a reservation on the 6:30pm ferry, which was absolutely necessary because the ferry sailings were already completely sold for the whole day by the time we arrived at the ferry terminal. Unfortunately, our sailing was delayed by almost 2 hours, meaning we didn’t get to Nanaimo until almost 10pm.

I’m a hyper-planner when it comes to trips, but this was one of the rare times where I didn’t have a booking for the night. I’ve been trying to embrace the unknown a little bit more and take advantage of FCFS and rec sites. We’d been hoping to drive to Campbell River before finding a place to sleep, but given the late hour, we drove ~30 minutes to Little Qualicum Provincial Park in search of a site instead. We were able to secure the second last campsite and quickly put up the tent to catch some sleep before continuing the journey in the morning.

We were up early to finish the 1 hour drive to Campbell River, followed by 2.5 hours to Port Hardy. Our friend Victoria was also joining us with her friends from Victoria, so she walked on the first ferry on Friday morning and they picked her up on their way north. They were a little bit behind us, so we stopped for a nice lunch at Cafe Guido in Port Hardy. It was an excellent choice because they also have a bookstore and artisan craft shop in the same space! So we picked up some souvenirs before finally meeting our friends and their Australian Shepherd, Daisy, to continue the journey.

We already had 4 hours of driving behind us, but we still had the most challenging part of the trip ahead – the Forest Service Road to San Josef Bay. Considering that Port Hardy is on the east coast of Vancouver Island and San Josef Bay is on the west coast, it’s pretty impressive that there’s a 65km gravel road extending the entire width of the island. Despite it being a gravel road, it’s not in terrible condition – you can do the entire drive in any vehicle, you don’t need 4WD or high clearance. That said, the road isn’t in great condition either! If you want to avoid the drive altogether, there is a shuttle that runs from Port Hardy.

The last time I did this road, Brandon was driving way too fast and got a flat tire 30 minutes in. This wouldn’t be the end of the world, but his mechanic had put the wrong lug nuts on his tires, so it left us entirely unable to change the tire. This devolved into a 24 hour expedition involving hitchhiking, sleeping on the FSR, and paying a mechanic to break all the lug nuts off. I really wanted to avoid any flat tires this time around, so we drove pretty slow. The first 30km of the road are in reasonable condition, but the last 35km have a continuous stream of potholes that make gaining any kind of speed risky. I’d say we averaged ~30km/h along the road, so it took us around 2.5 hours to get to the trailhead parking lot – with no flat tires!

From the parking lot, it’s a 3km hike along a well-maintained trail to San Josef Bay. Me and Seth backpacked, but Victoria and her friends had a very special “Swagon Wagon”, which they used to transport some more luxurious camping equipment! The first 1km of the trail is a shared route into the park, after which there is a branch. If you go right, you can hike 23km to the Cape Scott Lighthouse, or 60km to the end of the North Coast Trail. This is the trip I did in 2020. But if you turn left, it’s another 2km along a leisurely trail to San Josef Bay, one of the most beautiful beaches in the world!

The trail itself is gorgeous. We had a pretty late start, around 6:30pm, but it only took us an hour (even with the wagon) to hike through the forest to the beach. Along the trail, I was reminded why the north coast of Vancouver Island is such a special place. Like most of BC, it’s second growth forest, but you can still see lots of old growth trees scattered throughout. Somehow, these trees have withstood the test of time and it’s truly humbling to stand beneath their gigantic trunks, so I really enjoyed the walk to the beach. Although my shoulders were hurting – I also took advantage of the short distance to pack a few of my own luxury items!

The beach was surprisingly busy for mid-April, but not overly crowded. San Josef Bay consists of two beaches that are only connected at low tide (although there is a forest trail connecting them). The first beach is very large, so there were a steady amount of hikers camped along the back of the beach, but everyone was spread out and it didn’t feel too crowded. I can only imagine how much busier it must be in the summertime. When I visited in June, the parking lot was much busier than in April.

We set up on the main beach because we couldn’t get the wagon to the second beach. Most people were camping on the first beach and after visiting the second beach, I will say that there is much more limited camping space on that one. There’s more log jams at the back of the beach and the water comes closer to the forest at high tide, leaving limited space for tents. High tide is quite a way back from the forest on the first beach, so you can feel pretty safe camping there.

We were pretty late getting set up, so we enjoyed the sunset over the mountains while putting up our tents, and spent the rest of the evening enjoying a fire on the beach. We were able to collect firewood around the beach (never cut down live wood), but dead wood is in limited supply and I imagine it gets much harder to find later in the season. It rained earlier in the afternoon, so I definitely had my work cut out for me getting the fire started!

You never really get to sleep in when you go camping with a dog (they get up with the sun), but Sadie was more reserved than usual and let me sleep until our normal weekday wake-up time at least. It rained overnight, so my first order of business upon waking was to get a tarp set up. I put up one tarp and then Miranda put a second, so we had a nice tarp city ready for when the rain really started!

If you’ve ever been to the north coast of Vancouver Island, you know the weather is super unreliable! The fog loves to hang around the coast and it’s normal for the weather to oscillate between sun, grey, and rain multiple times a day, sometimes within the hour! I didn’t get a lot of rain when I hiked the North Coast Trail, but I didn’t get a lot of sun either. While visiting San Jo Bay in April, we got a little bit of everything all at once. It didn’t rain for any extended periods of time, but there was a pretty reliable cycle switching from rain to sun and back again, all day long.

It was dry during breakfast and we got ready to go for a beach walk, but then it started pouring, so we decided to wait it out. Low tide was at noon and the rain let up again around 11:30am, so we quickly got ready to go beachcombing. A lot of day hikers showed up around this time, presumably to explore the tidal areas. There’s a frontcountry rec site close to the parking lot, which I think is popular for campers that want to visit San Jo Bay, but don’t want to backpack.

Exploring the beach during low tide is really the highlight of visiting, so definitely plan your trip around it! When the tide drops, you can walk along the sand to the second beach. The low tide exposes a number of sea stacks and caves along the shoreline and you can walk on several of the islands, looking at sea creatures in the tidepools along the edges. We saw lots of sea anemones, sea stars, and crabs along the tide pools, as well as many other marine organisms that only Seth was able to properly identify. We had a great time exploring and ended up walking the beach for several hours!

Our companions took the wagon to the second beach, where firewood is much more plentiful, and me and Seth went in search of the freshwater source. The main consideration in camping on the first beach is that there’s no fresh water. My Gaia noted a water source on both ends of the second beach, but we opted for the source on the far west side. You do have to hike up into the woods for a few hundred metres and the trail is very muddy, but it’s a reasonably nice source – it’s just a little discoloured from the tannins, which I’m used to from Newfoundland. It was running pretty high because of the rain, so it might not be as nice in the dry season (if such a thing exists in this area).

Overall, it was a pretty low key trip and we mostly relaxed for the rest of the afternoon as the rain continued on and off. The downside of going camping in April is that it was pretty damp and chilly. I spent some time in the tent to warm up, and then later in the afternoon, Seth and I walked down to the opposite end of first beach to the estuary. I’m not sure if you can drink this water when the tide is going out, but based on my experience at other estuaries on the NCT, it’s probably very brackish. Though you could likely drink it if you walked much further upstream.

We had a lot of firewood for night 2, which was good because it rained a lot more. We got the campfire going and kept it pretty big for warmth. It sprinkled on us several times, but it was always short lived, so we never got properly wet. We caught a glimpse of the starts on our first night, but it was completely clouded in on our second night.

The rest of our crew took off pretty early on Sunday morning because they had to drive all the way home. Seth and I had an extra day, so we took our time packing down our tent and were rewarded with a beautiful blue sky view of the beach on the way out. It didn’t last long and was soon raining on us as we trundled through the forest, but the sun made a reappearance near the end of the trail, turning the trees the most beautiful shade of green as the sun peeked through the canopy!

So I finally redeemed myself from my first trip and made it to San Josef Bay! I do think it is worth the hype and would be keen to see what’s it’s like in more reliable weather. But I’m thrilled I can finally check it off my bucket list. Tune in next week to learn what Seth and I did with our last day in the backcountry, because the adventure didn’t end with San Jo Bay!

Tofino Surfing Trip

July 17, 2024July 16, 2024 / Maria / 2 Comments

I’ve had the opportunity to do some pretty cool things with my girl guides over the years, and this was definitely one of the more unique experiences!

Last year we did a water series that involved kayaking, whitewater rafting, and canoeing. The only activity on our brainstorm that we didn’t do was surfing, mostly because it was too expensive to make a trip to the island on top of all the other activities. This year, we decided to prioritize the surfing trip and dedicated 4 days over the May Long weekend to travel to Tofino.

I’d never heard of Tofino before moving to BC, but I remember after moving here that Tofino seemed to hold this mythical status for people who grew up in BC. It’s a small town located on the west coast of Vancouver Island. It’s most well known for its premier surfing beaches; but it’s also home to Pacific Rim National Park and fun activities such as hiking, whale watching, kayaking, and hot springs.

I’ve been to Tofino several times, but I’ve never surfed, so this was a new experience for me. To be honest, I’ve always found surfing to be a bit intimidating. I don’t like getting salt water in my eyes and mouth (inevitable when surfing), so I always avoided it. I was happy to do it for the unit, but it’s not something I would have opted to do on my own. Which is one of the reasons why I’m so lucky to get to spend time with 15 adventurous teenagers every year, because I had a fantastic time surfing!

We left New Westminster bright and early on Saturday morning of the May Long weekend to catch our ferry from Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo. It’s a 3-hour drive from Nanaimo to Tofino, so we made our first stop at Little Qualicum Falls to eat a packed lunch. It was raining on and off all morning, but Qualicum Falls has a nice picnic shelter and the rain held off long enough for us to do some exploring around the park to see the waterfalls.

After that, we drove across the rest of the island to reach the coast. The weather was incredibly variable and there were several downpours along the way, but as soon as we reached the coast, all the clouds disappeared and it was a gorgeous, blue sky, sunny day. We were extremely lucky to be able to book the group campsite at Green Point campground in Pacific Rim, which was just large enough for our group of 18.

After getting set up, we took a walk down to Long Beach before dinner, which is aptly named for its 16 kilometres of uninterrupted coastline. I’ve visited Long Beach several times, but I’d never been to this part of the beach. It’s a golden sand beach, with big waves, and on this occasion, a lot of wind. So it was definitely on the cold side, but we all loved running across the beach and exploring the area.

On Sunday, we had our first surf lesson. We did 2 lessons with Surf Sister School and I would highly recommend. As a female led organization, we loved having female surf guides to show us the ropes. On our first day, we met at Cox Bay Beach. We spent the first part of the day on land, learning how to safely get on our boards and pick our waves. Once everyone was comfortable with the instruction, we got in the water.

Surfing isn’t easy, but it was more fun than I anticipated. There was a steady stream of beginner waves rolling into the shore and we all practiced getting on our board. Standing up was almost impossible for me, but it was fun riding the waves on my belly and knees. Of course, once you get going, you become pretty determined to stand! I didn’t have any luck standing on Day 1, but several of the trex members were able to surf and it was fun to watch.

We returned to the campground for lunch and then planned for an afternoon exploring in the National Park. We visited the Kwisitis Visitor Centre on Wickaninnish Beach, which I’d highly recommend. They have tons of great info about the region and natural environment. From there, we did a short hike to South Beach, which is a small cobble beach. We had some excitement on the way when we spotted a bear! It was a great sighting because he was far enough away that us and the bear felt comfortable, and we were able to just watch it for a while.

South Beach turned out to be one of the group’s favourite parts of the entire trip. We didn’t do much there besides relax in the sun and do some beachcombing, but everyone really enjoyed taking it easy after a vigorous morning of surfing! We had dinner back at the campsite and then drove to Chesterman Beach for a sunset campfire. Tofino has really cracked down on beach campfires in the past few years, so you’re not allowed to have open beach fires anymore. Fires are only allowed at Mackenzie Beach and Chesterman Beach and must be in a contained fire pit. We brought a fire pit with us so that we followed all the rules.

On Monday, we had our second surf lesson, this time at Chesterman Beach. Our second lesson was mostly in the water and focused more on improving our skills. The general consensus from Trex was that they didn’t like Chesterman Beach quite as much as Cox Bay. The waves were bigger and less consistent, so I think it’s more popular for better surfers. But personally, I had a more successful day! I wouldn’t say that I actually managed to surf, but I did manage to stand twice, so it was nice to feel like I made a bit of progress! Considering that I didn’t want to surf, I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I would definitely surf again, and recommend it to those visiting the area. If you have time for 2 lessons, I think it’s more satisfying because you get to surf more on the second day.

One of the girls was celebrating her 13th birthday on the trip, so we had the most delicious birthday pie for lunch and then went into town for the afternoon. The girl guides had the opportunity to explore Tofino town on their own and I spent most of my time at the bookstore, Mermaid Tales, which is one of my favourites!

We finished the trip with a visit to Tacofino for dinner. We showed up only 15 minutes before closing (oops!!), but the staff were so wonderful in taking our 18 person order. We had some pretty good camp food on the trip, but the tacos were probably my favourite! We had a campfire to end the evening and everyone reflected on their favourite parts of the camp.

We still had a big final day ahead. It started to rain overnight and we had to pack up everything wet, which is never fun. But we’re really thankful that it didn’t rain during the rest of the trip, so it was a small price to pay! We had a pee break at the Taylor River rest stop on the way back, which has the most gorgeous green river running through. I’ll have to return in the future for a swim!

Our final stop on the trip was to the Old Country Market (better known as Goats on the Roof) in Coombs. The goats briefly came out on the roof for a photo op and we did some exploring around the market for lunch. We picked up some doughnuts from Billy G’s Doughnut Shop to enjoy on the ferry ride home.

I had such a fantastic time on this trip and I hope the girl guides did too! We received funding from West Coast Area’s Muriel Murray Fund and from Disney’s VoluntEars Program (through a parent employee) to do this trip. We’re so lucky to have access to funds to subsidize trips like these for teenagers. Several of the trex members are aging out this year after completing the entire Girl Guide Program from Sparks to Rangers. It is really transformative for girls to be able to go on trips like this, interact with female role models, and build up their skills. So thanks to everyone who’s ever bought girl guide cookies from me or a girl guide!