Sidewalking Jordan River
Like many people in Victoria (and across the country really) we had our Spring Break plans come crashing down and at the time didn’t know that school wasn’t coming back last week. So with a feeling of need to maintain some sort of beach vacation (we had been planning a trip to Mexico) we decided to book a cabin in Jordan River. (Just to be clear this was over three weeks ago)
Despite it being a last minute plan, we somehow lucked into an amazing cabin just past Jordan River in a new little development. It was the perfect place to have as a home base as we decided to explore a few of the area’s beaches.
On our way up on the first day, we stopped at Sandcut Beach which is a few kilometres before you reach Jordan river. There is a little parking lot off the highway and it is about a 400m trail down to the beach. When you first pop out onto the beach it is a beautiful rocky beach, but not anything beyond what you would see at French Beach just down the road. The special part is about another 200 or 300 metres south from where the trail comes onto the beach. This is where the Sandcut Creek crashes over a sandstone ledge and onto the rocks below. It is truly a beautiful waterfall. Unfortunately, it was quite busy when we visited with people climbing over the top and under the falls so it was not likely as picturesque as it is on a rainy day where you might get to enjoy the natural beauty of it on its own. Still it was stunning and I can understand why so many people had made the journey out there to visit it.
On the second day, we decided to head to Sombrio Beach. The last time I had been there was in the late 1990s, and yes I know how crazy that is given how close Victoria is to it. When I was young, it had been a favourite day trip for me to feel that raw nature that you would usually have to travel hours to get to. I hadn’t been since it had been more built up as a park and it does have a slightly more tamed feeling, but it is still majestic. After parking in the parking lot and walking about 500m down the trail we crossed the suspension bridge to the north and headed to a little platform camping area at the mouth of the river. Later on we headed down to the main beach that I used to visit. It was still breathtaking and beautiful, but it was also really busy and that did make it seem a little less raw than I remembered. It was definitely still worth the drive up and it really is only about 25 minutes from Jordan River.
On the second day we decided to hike down to Mystic Beach from the China Beach parking lot. This is not the easiest of hikes, but quite rewarding. There is another suspension bridge and this one is quite a bit higher up than the one at Sombrio. I am not a huge fan of heights and ones where you can see through what your walking on are even less fun than normal. I just try to focus on looking forward and make my way across. As you make your way down you have to pay close attention to the trail markers as it is not always evident what is the trail and what might just be a dried creek bed.
The last part of the trail is along logs with steps cut into them, then little wooden walkways and finally a really step staircase down to the beach. Perhaps even more bizarre then the length of time since my visit to Sombrio, is that I had never been to Mystic Beach before. Once again with so many people trying to find something to do with the kids and get out of the city, the beach was fairly busy, though not quite as much as the others, likely due to the long walk down. At the far north end of the beach was a rope swing that people were using and at the south end was beautiful waterfall that has likely a 25 metre drop at least. Along the back of the beach are several small shallow caves. You can easily imagine this beach before Victoria and Sooke as being a perfect little oasis. The tide was quite far in so I couldn’t get right up to the waterfall but it was an amazing site even from a ways away.
After packing up the cabin and starting home we stopped in at Jordan River for one last beach moment. With the boarded up cabins along here it made me think of the decision a few years ago by BC Hydro to buy up the town essentially as they did not want to fix the dam near here. It is really too bad that there is not an option to either decommission the dam or to strengthen to make it safe in the event of an earthquake, as I think Jordan River really would have been the ideal place for a real beach front surf town like you see along the Washington, Oregon and Northern California Coast. Somehow we never even got one along our coast. Maybe at some point there will be a chance for the decommissioning of the dam and we could see this develop. As it is now, Jordan River is a great place to stop along the drive and enjoy the beach and maybe get to watch some surfing.
The whole coast between Victoria and Port Renfrew is such an amazing gem of the area and it is surprising how undeveloped it is even now. Perhaps with a need to stay more local in the future, it will not stay this way much longer. I would love to know your favourite places along here.
