The waterfall is running low right now, and that is exactly why you should go.
Low water is what lets you climb up beside the falls and walk back along the creek bed into the trees, which is the part most people never see. I was out there with my daughter Rayne and we spent more time up on that sandstone than we did down on the beach.
Head to Sandcut Beach early if you can. The parking lot is small and it fills right through the summer, so by mid-morning you are looking at the Highway 14 shoulder instead. We ended up parking on the road, which plenty of people do, but it is narrow out front and cars come through faster than you would like.
Sandcut sits about 35 minutes west of Sooke on Highway 14, close enough that I end up out here a few times a year. If the lot is full when you pull in, French Beach is about fifteen minutes back toward town and has a proper day use lot.
Getting down to the beach
The walk down is only a few hundred metres, and I still take my time on it every visit. There are a few big old trees along the way and the forest around them is thick and green, the kind of stretch you would slow down for if it were the whole hike instead of the warm-up. It is short enough that nobody complains and pretty enough that nobody rushes.
The stairs are the part to plan for. There are about 75 of them, part of the roughly 34 metres the trail drops on its way down, and they were rebuilt recently so the footing is much better than it used to be. If your knees give you trouble, you will feel it going down more than coming up. The climb back looks worse from the bottom than it actually is. Just take it slow.
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When you hit the beach, turn left for the waterfall. It is a short walk, but the shoreline here is cobble and some of those rocks are big, so it is slower going than a sand beach. Time it for a low tide, and a strip of sand opens up, which makes the whole walk easier and gives the kids somewhere flat to play.
Why the waterfall changes height
The falls split into two streams and run somewhere between about 8 and 18 feet depending on when you show up. It is not the water that changes the height. It’s the beach. Winter storms push pebbles up against the base and fill in the drop, then heavy rain flows push the gravel back out, exposing the full face again.
There were people set up for the whole day around the falls when we got there, chairs and all, and others who had just walked down for a look and a few photos. Both work. It is one of the few spots on this coast where you can drive up, be at a waterfall in twenty minutes, and still make it feel like an afternoon.
The one thing that never changes is the driftwood. There is a huge log near the falls with the entire root ball still attached, and it has held that same spot for years on a beach that rearranges itself every winter. Rayne climbs it every single time.
Above the falls
Up above the falls it is a completely different place. The water has cut into the sandstone and left pools and smooth channels and little ledges, and you can follow it back until the beach noise drops off behind you.
That is what we always end up doing, looking into the pools, watching the small channels cut deeper into the sandstone, finding the small second waterfall back in the trees.
I have been to Sandcut many times and it has never looked the same twice. Right now the low water has the top of the creek wide open, so if you have been meaning to see it, this is the stretch of the year to go. Lower tide, early in the day, and turn left at the bottom of the stairs.
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