subject: Long Beach, Pacific Rim National Park, Vancouver Island [print this page] Pacific Rim National Park Reserve's Long Beach is a striking sandy stretch of coastline surrounded by lush greenery and rocky headlands on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. It lies along Wickanninish Bay between Tofino and Ucluelet.
Long Beach gets its name from the 12-kilometre stretch of white surf-swept sand. This section of the park is the most accessible and developed and offers outstanding beach hiking, headland hiking trails, nature programs, guided hikes, and group tours during the summer, and walk-in and drive-in campsites. Day-user have hiking trails and picnic areas available for their use.
Because of the positioning of the beaches, one of the beaches always has decent surf because of the exposure to the open Pacific Ocean. This fact has helped to establish this area as one of the most popular surfing locations in Canada.
Visitors travel to this area to appreciate the romantic isolation of the Pacific Rim and Long Beach region. It's an acknowledgment to the scale of these surroundings that so many travellers can appear to disappear into it and still leave it so empty.
People spend days just walking the beaches in this area. The beaches from north to south are: Radar Beach, Long Beach, Combers Beach, and Wickaninnish Beach. These beaches stretch for 15.5 miles (25 km) between Cox and Quisitas Points. This defines the Long Beach Unit of beaches, and is the most visited portion of the park. Despite this popularity, Long Beach still remains a supernatural place of sand and surf, sea lions and starfish.
Radar Beach has a rugged side to it because of the pummelling it takes from the surf. Exercise great caution should be exercised when it comes to the weather and the surf when you are on these beaches.
Your experience will depend on the timing of your visit and the height of the swells in Wickaninnish Bay. Not to mention the weather and wind conditions. You may see surfers, sea kayakers, cyclists, kite flyers, hackey-sackers, swimmers, joggers, and walkers at play on the hard-packed sand.
Rocky headlands mark the end of Wickaninnish Bay at both ends. But that is not the end of the beaches. There are four more equally beautiful sandy expanses, each with a variation on the overall mood of isolation. For example, Wreck Beach on Florencia Bay is 3 miles (5 km) long and lies at the south end of the Long Beach Unit. It's easily reached from Hwy 4, 3 miles (5 km) north of the Tofino-Ucluelet Junction.
If you only have set a side a short amount of time to visit this area, head directly to Long Beach. It is the most accessible and also the longest at 10 km long!
by: KC Beam
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