Vancouver Island Nature Tours

Many of the trails on Central Vancouver Island, including the Alberni Valley, are only known by locals. Often people new to the area need to meet people who have been in the area for a while before they find out where these trails are. They are usually not mapped by anyone except perhaps by a Regional District (similar to a County Government). And they won’t give you a copy. There are rarely any signs approaching trail-heads, at them, or along them. For visitors and travelers this situation is even worse. They have no idea that there are even any trails.

Often these trails are quite lovely. They often go to wonderful places, like waterfalls, groves of old forest, unique rock formations or wonderful views. Travelers are missing out.

And this post is a first attempt to put local knowledge of trails on line. As much as possible, I will be posting GPS tracks so that people with a GPS unit can be certain they are at the trail-heads without the need for a sign.

In the Alberni Valley, there are three locations where you can find reasonably good trail information. But each of them is missing bits of information that is very helpful.

First, and best is the web page on the Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District’s site. The ACRD, as it is also known is the local regional government similar to county government in other areas. Anyway, the trails are all relatively easy except the CNPR Trail. It is quite steep in places and it is a long climb. The Adobe Acrobat files provide a good description of the trails and how to get there. However, there are no GPS files of the trails available to the public…yet!

More to in the coming weeks…

• Leave a comment...