The shipwreck Cyrus is located just down from the West Coast Trail's Gordon River trailhead. If you stand at the wonderful, long, sandy beach that spans the width of Port San Juan and look out over the ocean on your right, you will be looking over the patch of ocean where the Cyrus met her end. The Cyrus was a 213 ton, two masted ship, built in 1832.

Day 7 on the West Coast Trail from Camper Bay to Thrasher Cove or further along to the Gordon River trailhead gives you two route options. After three kilometres of very challenging rainforest hiking from Camper Bay, you come to a beach access route that branches off the main trail. From this point near 65km you can hike along the coast all the way to Thrasher Cove, or hike this section completely inland.

More Shipwrecks of British Columbia by Fred Rogers follows his first book Shipwrecks of British Columbia. Taken together, these books cover a staggering number of shipwrecks all around Vancouver Island. What sets these two books apart from all other West Coast Trail shipwreck books is that Rogers is a wreck diver and has inspected up close, hundreds of shipwrecks, including many along the West Coast Trail.

The Pacheedaht Campground is a beautiful, and often bustling campground, quite close to the Gordon River trailhead for the West Coast Trail. Pacheedaht Beach is exactly what you would hope for in a Vancouver Island, west coast beach. It is a two kilometres long, wide, sandy beach with the ever present tangle of driftwood logs scattered along its length. The sand is powdery and soft and the salt smell of the ocean is wonderfully invigorating.

Thrasher Cove is the first, or last West Coast Trail campsite you will encounter. It has a lot of good aspects as well as some bad. In terms of good, the beach is very pretty and quite interesting. Not a broad and long beach, the beach at Thrasher is quite varied with rock outcrops and constant bends. You can easily keep yourself amused by wandering down the beach, poking your head around every new corner. 

There are three entry/exit points for the West Coast Trail, however the midway entry/exit point at Nitinaht Narrows is for hikers only hiking part of the trail. The two main entry points are at Pachena Bay in the north(Bamfield) and Gordon River in the south(Port Renfrew). Port Renfrew is located a 2 hours drive from Victoria and Bamfield is quite a bit further and more challenging to get to and find.

The West Coast Trail hiking season is confined to just five months due to the dangerously stormy weather during the winter months. In the winter the days are short, tides are high and heavy rain and strong winds are frequent. Hiking the trail in the summer is tough enough without these added challenges. To keep the trail from becoming overcrowded, overnight hikers are limited to 75 per day.