East Sooke Regional Park has five trails worth a day out, and they run from a 1 km walk to a sandy cove up to a traverse of the entire coastline. Which one you pick decides everything else: which trailhead you park at, whether you need two vehicles, and whether you are back in Sooke for lunch or still on the rocks at four o’clock.
East Sooke Regional Park is a 1,474-hectare wilderness park on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, managed by the Capital Regional District, about 45 minutes from Victoria. The park runs along a rugged stretch of the Juan de Fuca Strait and draws visitors for coastal hiking, sandy beaches, Indigenous petroglyphs roughly 3,000 years old, and shore-based wildlife watching. It is free to visit year round with no reservation required.
- Size: 1,474 hectares, established in 1970
- Cost: free, no day-use fee or reservation required
- Trails: about 50 km in total, across five main routes
- Coast Trail: 10.5 km by the CRD’s measure, closer to 14 km lot to lot on our GPS
- Trailheads: Aylard Farm (east), Pike Road (west), Anderson Cove (Sooke Basin side)
- Hours: sunrise to sunset, year round
- Facilities: accessible toilets at the main trailheads, no drinking water on the trails
- Dogs: allowed, on leash or under control
- Best for: hikers, families, wildlife watchers, dog owners, photographers
A good fit for families on the short beach walks and for confident hikers on the Coast Trail, which is technical from end to end. Less good if you want a flat gravel loop, or if you need a phone signal to feel comfortable. On sunny summer weekends the Aylard Farm lot fills by mid-morning, so arriving before 10am is the difference between parking and waiting.
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Hiking in East Sooke Regional Park
The park holds about 50 km of trails across forest, marsh and open coast, organized around five main routes and three trailheads. Four of the five are day hikes you can start and finish at the same parking lot. The fifth is the full traverse.
The headline route is the East Sooke Coast Trail, which links Iron Mine Bay on the west side with the white sand beach at Aylard Farm on Becher Bay in the east. It is technical from start to finish, with uneven rock, short scrambles and few places to bail out once you are committed to the middle. Allow 6 to 8 hours.
Our GPS measured just under 14 km from the Aylard Farm lot to the Pike Road lot on the full traverse. The CRD’s trailhead panel lists the Coast Trail at 10.5 km, which measures the coastal section and leaves out the approach trails at each end. Both numbers are right about different things. Plan your day on 14.
Quick trail comparison
| Trail | Distance | Difficulty | Trailhead and highlight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Becher Bay and Creyke Point | 1 km | Easy | Aylard Farm. White sand beach, rope swing, accessible washrooms at the lot. |
| Beechey Head Loop | 5.5 km | Moderate | Aylard Farm. Petroglyphs, coastal scramble, the big viewpoint, forest return. |
| Cabin Point Loop | 11 km | Moderate | Aylard Farm. A full day on the shoreline, turning at the restored 1930s trap shack. |
| Iron Mine Bay and Pike Point | 3 km return | Easy | Pike Road. Flat gravel through big trees to a pebble cove, with a rooty add-on up to the Pike Point lookout. |
| East Sooke Coast Trail | 10.5 km, about 14 km lot to lot | Moderate to strenuous | Either end. The full traverse, Iron Mine Bay to Becher Bay. Two vehicles recommended. |
If you are only doing one, do the Beechey Head Loop. It packs the petroglyphs, the scrambling, the viewpoint and a quiet forest return into a half day, and it is the trail we send people to more than any other in the Sooke region.
GPS tracks and recent trail reports for each route: Creyke Point, Beechey Head Loop, Cabin Point Loop, Pike Road Trail and the East Sooke Coast Trail on AllTrails.
East Sooke Park trail map
The map covers the four main hikes, the two coastal parking areas and the toilets at each, along with the beaches, the petroglyphs and the viewpoints in between. For the wider picture, our Vancouver Island hiking trail map puts East Sooke alongside every other trail on the site.
Every marked trail in the park, with distances
The CRD’s trailhead panel lists twelve marked trails, several of which are short connectors rather than destinations. These are the distances as the park’s own signage states them.
- Coast Trail, 10.5 km
- Interior Trail, 6.5 km
- Anderson Cove Trail, 5 km
- Endurance Ridge Trail, 3 km
- Copper Mine Trail, 2.5 km
- Babbington Hill Trail, 2.5 km
- Parkheights Trail, 2.3 km
- Pike Road Trail, 1.5 km
- Creyke Point Trail, 1 km
- Mount Maguire Trail, 420 m
- Swamp Bypass, 200 m
- Silver Spray Trail, 160 m
Two-vehicle strategy for the Coast Trail
Leave one car at the Pike Road lot on the west side and the other at Aylard Farm in the east. The drive between the two trailheads takes about 17 minutes. On the way you pass the East Sooke Sasquatch at the roadside junction, worth the two-minute stop for the eleven-foot sculpture and the general store’s snacks before you commit to six hours without a shop.
Walking it west to east means finishing at the beach and the picnic tables rather than at a gravel lot in the trees. It also means the harder rock work is behind you when your legs are done.
For the trail detail on each side, see the dedicated pages for Aylard Farm and Iron Mine Bay and Pike Point. More walks across the wider region are in our Sooke hiking guide.
Beyond the trails
Hiking is the main draw, but East Sooke Regional Park has reasons to visit that do not involve a long day on the rock.
Wildlife watching
The park is one of the more reliable places on the south Island for wildlife seen from shore. River otters live on the rocky beach at Aylard Farm and feed in the early morning and late evening. Pelagic cormorants work the water around Iron Mine Bay year round.
Looking out into the Juan de Fuca Strait from the Beechey Head and Cabin Point viewpoints, there is a chance to see humpback whales, orca and Steller’s sea lions as the species feeding in these waters. Harbour seals are common close in. Calm days give you the best chance, because a blow is easier to spot on flat water than in a chop.
The park is also good for raptors. Routes up from Anderson Cove pass through territory where bald eagles, turkey vultures and red-tailed hawks are regularly seen, and Beechey Head is a known autumn raptor migration point, with hawk watchers arriving in September and October to count birds moving south along the ridge.
Why the plant life here is unusual
East Sooke sits on the boundary between wet and dry coastal forest, and the trailhead panel explains why. Moist air off the ocean keeps this stretch damp and rainforest-like, while the country east of here falls into the rain shadow of Mount Olympus in Washington State and runs much drier. Species from both zones turn up in the park, each at the outer edge of its range.
One of them is Macoun’s meadow-foam, a rare ground cover that grows almost nowhere else: small moist depressions on a handful of islands in southwestern BC. It flowers in early spring, dries off in the summer heat and is easily wrecked by foot traffic. That is the real reason the signs ask you to stay on the trail.
Iron Mine Bay
Iron Mine Bay is the pebble cove at the western end of the park, 3 km return on a flat gravel trail from the Pike Road lot. Our page on Iron Mine Bay and Pike Point covers the tides, the island offshore, the whale lookout and the accessibility detail.
Swimming at Aylard Farm
The white sand beach at Aylard Farm is the best swimming spot in the park, a short walk from the parking lot. The water is cold year-round, as you would expect on the strait, but on warm summer days families use the beach for wading and sunbathing. There are no lifeguards. Picnic tables and a shelter sit just back from the sand.
Alldridge Point petroglyphs
About 1.5 km along the Beechey Head trail, Indigenous petroglyphs are carved into the sandstone at Alldridge Point. A seal outline and other shapes are still visible, and they are believed to be roughly 3,000 years old. Take your time and stay off the carved rock. This is an open-air site with no barriers and no supervision, so it lasts only as long as visitors treat it properly.
Anderson Cove trails
Anderson Cove is the park’s third and quietest access point, on the Sooke Basin side. It is the start of the routes up Babbington Hill and Mount Maguire, which give you a different park from the coastal trails: steeper forest terrain, open hilltop views over the strait, and far fewer people than Aylard Farm on a summer weekend. If you want the inland ridge rather than the shoreline, start here.
Planning your visit
Aylard Farm trailhead, east side
1 Becher Bay Rd, Sooke. Aylard Farm is the main entrance and the start of the Becher Bay beach walk, the Beechey Head Loop, Cabin Point and the eastern end of the Coast Trail. Parking is free, with accessible toilets, picnic tables and a shelter. The lot fills by mid-morning on sunny weekends and holidays, so before 10am is a safe arrival time. Google Maps
Pike Road trailhead, west side
1366 Pike Rd, Sooke. The western trailhead for Iron Mine Bay and Pike Point and the western end of the Coast Trail. Free parking on two levels, with an accessible stall at the entrance and wheelchair-accessible pit toilets at the start of the trail. Generally quieter than Aylard Farm on a busy day. Google Maps
Anderson Cove trailhead, Sooke Basin side
Access off East Sooke Rd. The starting point for Babbington Hill and Mount Maguire. Steep terrain, inland forest, good for birds and hilltop views, and the quietest of the three. Google Maps
Getting to East Sooke Regional Park
By car, the Aylard Farm entrance is about a 45-minute drive from Victoria and about 20 minutes from central Sooke. Take Highway 14 toward Sooke, turn south on Gillespie Road to the three-way stop, continue along East Sooke Road and turn right onto Becher Bay Road. The lot sits at the end of the road in an open meadow. For Pike Road, carry on past the Gillespie junction along East Sooke Road and turn south onto Pike Road.
By transit, BC Transit Route 64 runs toward East Sooke from Victoria and Sooke on weekdays, with the closest stop on Becher Bay Road roughly a 25-minute walk from the Aylard Farm lot. There is no stop at Pike Road. Route 64 runs limited hours, so confirm the current schedule before you rely on it.
Plan your visit
- 2-Day Sooke Family Trip puts East Sooke on day one alongside the beaches and the harbour, with the driving order worked out.
- Sooke Trip Planner for the rest of the region: what is open, what is worth the drive, and how the days fit together.
- Compare places to stay in Sooke, the sensible base for an early start at either trailhead. Most listings show free cancellation.
- East Sooke vacation rentals, including forest cabins within a few minutes of the park entrance.
Trail conditions and safety
Even the easier routes have sections of roots, rock and uneven ground. After rain the coastal trails get slippery and the lower sections of the Coast Trail turn muddy. Sturdy footwear with real grip matters most on Beechey Head and the Coast Trail, where spray keeps the rock near the water wet even on dry days.
Carry water for the whole hike. There is no treated drinking water anywhere in the park once you leave the trailheads, and there is nowhere to top up. On the Coast Trail, carry more than you think.
Cell service is patchy, worst on the lower coastal sections and inside the coves. Higher viewpoints sometimes pick up a signal and sometimes do not. Download an offline map, tell someone your route and your expected return time, and treat the phone as a bonus rather than a plan. The CRD’s own signage describes this as a wilderness park and notes that emergency response can take several hours.
The Coast Trail has few exit points once you are into the middle sections. If the weather turns or the ground feels harder than you expected, turning back early is always the right call. Coastal sections are exposed to wind and spray, so a wind layer earns its place in the pack even on a warm day.
East Sooke’s forest and shoreline are prime black bear and cougar habitat, and the park’s signage asks for 100 m of distance from both. Our Vancouver Island wildlife safety guide covers what you are actually likely to meet on a trail here and what to do about it.
The park is open sunrise to sunset, year round.
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