Accommodation

Vancouver Island

Trip reports Weather

Strathcona Park campgrounds, the island hostels, and the Vancouver Island Section hut.

Working out where to go? Browse the trip reports by objective for this area, and check the forecast before you commit.

A ferry away from everything else here, and worth the crossing for Strathcona. Campgrounds book through BC Parks.

Campgrounds — BC Parks

Strathcona Park — Buttle Lake and Ralph River, the two serviced campgrounds, plus backcountry camping on the Forbidden Plateau
Elk Falls — just outside Campbell River, handy for a late arrival
Pacific Rim National Park Reserve — Green Point, on the west coast at Tofino

Hostels

HI Cumberland — in the Comox Valley, closest to Strathcona
HI Tofino — on the west coast

Alpine Club of Canada huts

Huts book through the Alpine Club of Canada on a rolling window — six months ahead for members, three for everyone else.

Hišimy̓awiƛ — the Vancouver Island Section hut, on the Forbidden Plateau in Strathcona Park

Recreation sites

Crown land camping on the Island is real but awkwardly placed: the recreation sites cluster around the Sayward Forest canoe route, Cowichan Lake and the west-coast inlets rather than around Strathcona, which is where the hiking is. First come, first served. See how it works for the rules.

Cougar Creek — 65 sites on Tlupana Inlet near Gold River, $15, gated for the season in mid-September. Gold River is the Strathcona back door.
Muchalat Lake — 40 sites, also out of Gold River.
Maple Grove, Nixon Creek and Pine Point — the Cowichan Lake trio, 60 to 83 sites each, fee.
Pacific Yew and Gosling Lake — on the Sayward Forest canoe route out of Campbell River, the newer and the quieter.
Elk Bay and Pye Beach — free, and two of the few with ocean access.

Much of the Island is not Crown land. Roughly 550,000 hectares between Victoria and Campbell River is privately owned managed forest administered by Mosaic Forest Management, which controls it with more than twenty gates. Access to Mount Arrowsmith, Century Sam and other well-known objectives runs through them, and is often limited to weekend daylight hours. Mosaic also runs its own campgrounds. None of the Crown land rules above apply behind those gates — check the gate schedule before driving out, because a closed one ends the day.

West Kootenay

The three Kokanee Glacier cabins, HI Nelson, and the provincial park campgrounds around it.

Backcountry Huts

How Alpine Club of Canada huts are booked, and where to find each one.