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Sunset over a rocky Pacific Rim shoreline, evergreen branches in silhouette, orange light on the horizon

Nanaimo to Tofino: Highway 4, Ucluelet, Shorepine Bog, and Long Beach

The west-coast Island trip worth the ferry: Highway 4, Ucluelet, Shorepine Bog, Long Beach, and a waterfall on each end. Three days if you want daylight on the coast. Do not treat Radar Hill as the hike. The bog and the beach are the walking.

Quick facts

Length
3 days
Driving distance
650 km
Starts
Nanaimo
Ends
Nanaimo
Season
Spring, Summer, Fall

The route

  1. 1Nanaimo
  2. 2Englishman River Falls
  3. 3Highway 4
  4. 4Ucluelet
  5. 5Pacific Rim National Park Reserve
  6. 6Shorepine Bog
  7. 7Radar Hill
  8. 8Long Beach
  9. 9Tofino
  10. 10Little Qualicum Falls
On this page3 sections

I drove this in early April 2024. The 4th was Nanaimo, Englishman River Falls, and the Highway 4 crossing into Ucluelet. The 5th was Shorepine Bog, Radar Hill, Long Beach, and the rocks at last light. The 6th was Little Qualicum eastbound.

The photographs on this page are those two west-coast days plus the highway in. Qualicum is linked as a hike because the frames already live on that guide. Sooke was the same afternoon as Qualicum. That stack is documented on the Sooke day. Do not build it into this schedule.

Day 1: ferry, a waterfall, the long road

Horseshoe Bay to Departure Bay, or Tsawwassen to Duke Point. Then Highway 19 to Parksville and off to Englishman River Falls if you have the daylight. The loop is stairs and a canyon. It is not why you came, and it is the best waterfall stop before you commit to Highway 4.

A person in a green jacket reading the Colliery Dam Park welcome map under a wooden kiosk in Nanaimo
4 April 2024, Colliery Dam Park in Nanaimo. A stretch-the-legs stop after the ferry, before Highway 19 north.

Colliery Dam Park in Nanaimo is a legs-and-map stop, not a destination. I stood at the kiosk on 4 April because the ferry dumps you into town and the west coast is still three hours away.

Green highway distance sign reading Ucluelet 111 and Tofino 137, photographed from inside a car
The numbers that make the day honest. Ucluelet 111. Tofino 137. After this the road is the trip.

Highway 4 from Parksville through Port Alberni to the Tofino-Ucluelet junction is the spine. Cathedral Grove (MacMillan Provincial Park) is a signed pull-off in the same corridor. I did not make a frame of the grove that I trust enough to put here. The distance sign, the mill-site sign, and the two-lane through cedar are the drive I actually photographed.

Welcome to Ucluelet sign, Ukee Days banner, Wild Pacific Trail and aquarium logos, side-view mirror in the foreground
Ucluelet. Explore life on the edge, as the sign says. I shot this through the windscreen on 4 April.
Two-lane Pacific Rim Highway running through tall evergreen forest under a clear blue sky
Highway 4 as a photograph, not just a commute. Double yellow, cedar, a clear April sky.
Roadside sign for Iisaak Forest Resources Millstream Mill Site at 2777 Pacific Rim Highway
2777 Pacific Rim Highway. The mill site sign is how you know you are on the coast road, not still in the Alberni Valley.

Sleep in Ucluelet or Tofino. Ucluelet is quieter and closer to the Wild Pacific Trail rocks. Tofino is the town people mean when they say this trip. I used both ends of the road.

Day 2: the park, the bog, the beach

Pacific Rim National Park Reserve charges a day-use fee at the gate. The cheaper Beach Walk Pass does not cover every lot. Radar Hill is one of the lots it misses. Recreational drones are prohibited in the park. Dogs on leash. Stay on the Shorepine Bog boards.

Wooden boardwalk curving through stunted shorepine under a bright sky in Pacific Rim National Park Reserve
5 April 2024, Shorepine Bog. Eight hundred metres of boards. Stay on them. The bog does not recover from footprints.

Shorepine Bog is 800 m and it is the honest short walk in the Long Beach Unit that is not a beach. Twisted shorepine, a bilingual sign, a warning that the boards are slippery. I walked it 5 April 2024 in hard sun.

Radar Hill is a five-minute paved path to the highest viewpoint in the unit. I have the kiosk, not a clear panorama, because the marine layer does that here. Go up anyway if you are already paying the fee. Check the sky from town first.

Parks Canada Radar Hill kiosk, Načaas watching over the land, Tla-o-qui-aht and Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ logos, national park entry pass panel
Radar Hill. A five-minute walk and a park fee. The kiosk is the honest establishing frame when the marine layer has the view.
A photographer in a green jacket setting up a tripod on a wide sandy beach with driftwood and surf
Long Beach, tripod in the sand, footprints already there. This is the coast the bog is not.

Long Beach is the sand. Tripod, driftwood, other people's footprints. This is a park beach with a fee, not a secret cove. Give it the afternoon. The rocks at last light are a different frame on the same coast.

Waves breaking on a dark rocky shoreline, evergreen branches in the corners, overcast horizon
The rocks at the end of the day. Same coast as the sunset hero. Stay off wet ledges for a better angle.

Day 3: eastbound

Leave the coast in the morning. Little Qualicum Falls is signed on Highway 4 west of Parksville and is the waterfall you can do without leaving the highway corridor. Englishman is the better canyon if you only have one, and you already did it on the way in. Qualicum is the mossy gorge on the way out.

Then the ferry. If you are somehow still pointed at Swartz Bay instead of Nanaimo, that is how Sooke happened on my 6 April. It is a different itinerary on purpose.

Hiked it myself

4 April: Nanaimo, Englishman River Falls, Highway 4 into Ucluelet. 5 April: Shorepine Bog in sun, Radar Hill kiosk, Long Beach, rocks at last light. 6 April: Little Qualicum eastbound. Park fee in effect. No drone in the park.

Reported by Parveen Singh

Trails on this trip

Full guides for every hike in the itinerary - distances, conditions and where the light lands.