East Sooke Trail

~ submitted by John Young

April 15, 2018

10K; easy to do, right? I mean even at my more advanced age I could run it in less than an hour, albeit on a flat, smooth trail. So how long does it take to hike 10K? Six hours?! Well, that’s how long it took us for the East Sooke Coast Hike yesterday. Granted we had a 40 min. stop for lunch and a few other breaks, but it was still five hours of hiking, up and down and around.

We drove to the trailhead at Aylard Farm, and then took taxis to the trailhead at Pike Road. For the first 2K the trail is flat through scenic second growth forest.

We came out to the shoreline, and for the first little while it was a nice walk in the park, and without the rain that had been forecast.

   

And then the trail became more rugged, with repeated ups and downs and round-abouts.

   

Some beautiful forest, though, as attested to by this big Douglas fir.

  

And the further along we went, the more flowers we saw.
This calypso orchid:

The stonecrop carpeting the south-facing rocks:

Some early Camas about to bloom:

And shooting stars, among others:

There were also some great inlets along the rugged shore:

  

But, every time we came down to the shore, we had to climb back up,

And then down.

Finally, it levelled out, and after six hours we were back to our cars. No wonder this trail is rated as one of Canada’s top day hikes!