For Those Who Come Next: Itinerary for Walking the Trans Canada Trail in British Columbia

“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
 
John Muir, National Park Service
 

How long does it take to hike across British Columbia on the Trans Canada Trail?

 
There are moments within a long journey where it becomes necessary to step slightly outside of the day-to-day routine of walking and reflect on what the path has actually required. Our goal, as we walk from coast to coast to coast on the Trans Canada Trail, has always been to share each day of the journey and, in the process, help those who might have an interest in attempting something similar. To this end, this entry is about sharing our itinerary for hiking across British Columbia.

 
In the process, we hope to answer questions that anyone might have about the province that we have recently concluded, such as:
 
What is it like to hike across British Columbia on the Trans Canada Trail?
If you want to hike across British Columbia, how long might it take?
If you want to hike across British Columbia, what might the daily stages look like?
 

Notes on Hiking Across British Columbia on the TCT

 
British Columbia was the tenth province of our #Hike4Birds on the Trans Canada Trail and the final province on our east-to-west crossing from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. By the time we reached it, we had already walked from Cape Spear, Newfoundland, through the Maritimes, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. We had crossed the prairies, navigated highways and rural road connectors, followed rail trails and river valleys, moved through cities, climbed into the Rockies, and stood at Elk Pass on the Continental Divide.

 
Crossing into British Columbia did not feel like the beginning of something entirely new so much as the continuation of a momentum that had been building for years.  By the time we entered British Columbia, we had already spent more than 500 days walking the Trans Canada Trail over four years, covering roughly 12,000 km on the national pathway alone, in addition to other long-distance walks around the world - including: the Camino Portuguese, Camino de Madrid, Camino San Salvador, Camino Primitivo, the Rota Vincentina and Camino Portuguese Coastal and Espiritual. 
 
Entering British Columbia, our immediate experience was one of dealing with the rugged terrain and increasing scale of the landscape.  The result being that as the terrain changed so too did the trail changed.

 
From the moment we descended from Elk Pass into the Elk Valley, our daily stages were no longer shaped only by distance alone but were increasingly determined by the topography of mountains and valleys, as well as forestry tracts, rail grades, ferry schedules, urban pathways, and the evolving structure of the route itself. British Columbia was not one trail experience along the TCT, instead it was a sequence of regions, each with its own rewards and challenges.

 
In the autumn of 2022, we began our trek across British Columbia, hoping to reach the Pacific before winter arrived.  In the process we would venture amid stunning mountain scenery, past coal mines, into the Rocky Mountain Trench, along Myra Canyon’s wooden trestles, through Columbia and Western Rail Trail tunnels, along the shores of the Fraser River, across Vancouver, and to Vancouver Island, following the Cowichan Valley Trail, the Galloping Goose Trail, and finally Victoria and the Pacific Terminus of the Trans Canada Trail.

 
That list alone says something important about the province. Namely, that British Columbia includes some of the most remarkable sections of both natural wonder and the Trans Canada Trail that we walked anywhere in the country.  However, this sense of the province was also tempered by the fact that we walked through areas that warned of landslides, avalanche possibilities, and ultimately dealt with one section of the Kettle Valley Rail Trail that was on fire and soon after was decommissioned.
 

Guide to Hiking the TCT in British Columbia

 
What follows is not a guide in the traditional sense. It is not prescriptive, nor is it intended to suggest that this is how the route must be walked. It is instead a record of how we crossed British Columbia – drawn from our journals, our daily shared blog entries, and the lived experience of our trek.
 
We offer this information as a means to plan and ground your own trek – to have the same type of insights based on experience that we would have loved when we set out on the Great Trail.


However, at the time of writing this, the existing guidebooks for the Great Trail are incomplete and most are more than a decade old. In some cases, the TCT has moved its route, expanded the trail system significantly, or been affected by floods, wildfire damage, construction, closures, and reroutes. British Columbia, perhaps more than many provinces, makes clear that the trail is not static. It is a living network, shaped by landscape, weather, infrastructure, community decisions, and natural disasters.
 
This record exists for those who are considering a Trans Canada journey, whether on foot or by bike. It is not meant as a template, and certainly not a promise that this is how your journey will turn out. The information here – and in our daily blogs – is a glimpse of what one passage across the province looked like, for two particular people, in one particular year.
 
It must always be remembered that routes change, conditions vary, and circumstances are never the same twice – day to day, year to year, season to season, and hiker to hiker.

 
With that said, sometimes knowing where someone once walked, struggled, adapted, and succeeded can make things easier at the end of a hard day on the trail. Knowing that you are standing and walking where others once did can make a world of difference in moments of doubt. We certainly took faith in knowing that Dana Meise, Sara Jackson, Dianne Whelan, Mel Vogel and others had come before us.
 

Stages and Itinerary for Hiking Across British Columbia

 
Remembering that our trek on the Trans Canada Trail across British Columbia took place in the fall and early winter of 2022, at the conclusion of our fourth year on the national pathway.  


British Columbia took us 49 trail days across 70 listed days in 2022, not including the week we left the trail and went home. If we include our earlier 6-day paddle on the Salish Sea Marine Trail, which formed part of our Trans Canada Trail route through coastal British Columbia, then our BC total becomes 55 active TCT progress days across 76 total TCT days connected to the province. The larger number reflects days off trail, rest days, resupply days, and days we spent giving public presentations about our #Hike4Birds citizen science outreach.
 
The time spent hiking across British Columbia was not defined by distance alone, but by a combination of factors including- the distances we had already covered while hiking earlier in this year (Camino Madrid, Camino San Salvador, Camino Primitivo – then the TCT in Quebec and across all of Alberta), heat, terrain, physical exhaustion and of course the realities of the world – all shaped our progress. 

 
It is also important to note that the itinerary above covers only the southern east-west portion of the Trans Canada Trail through British Columbia - the route used by those following the Atlantic-to-Pacific corridor.  There is, however, another long stretch of the TCT in Northern British Columbia along the branch to the Arctic.
 

Itinerary for the Trans Canada Trail in British Columbia

 
BC Mainland Trails
 
September 9, 2022 – Peter Lougheed PP to Riverside Site (AB into BC)
September 10, 2022 – Riverside to Blue Lake
September 11, 2022 – Blue Lake to Elkford
September 12, 2022 – Elkford – Day off
September 13, 2022 – Elkford – Day off
September 14, 2022 – Elkford to Sparwood afternoon
September 15, 2022 – Sparwood – Day off
September 16, 2022 – Sparwood to Fernie
September 17, 2022 – Fernie – Day off
September 18, 2022 – Fernie to beyond Elko
September 19, 2022 – Beyond Elko to Lake Koocanusa
September 20, 2022 – Lake Koocanusa to Chief Isadore 30 km
September 21, 2022 – Chief Isadore Trail to Cranbrook
September 22, 2022 – Cranbrook – Day off
September 23, 2022 – Cranbrook to Kimberley
September 24, 2022 – Kimberley – Day off
September 25, 2022 – Kimberley to Redding FSC
September 26, 2022 – 30 km beyond Redding FSC
September 27, 2022 – Grey Pass to Crawford Bay
September 28, 2022 – Crawford Bay to Kootenay Bay to Nelson
September 29, 2022 – Nelson – Day off
September 30, 2022 – Nelson – Day off due to a huge rain storm
October 1, 2022 – Nelson to Granite
October 2, 2022 – Granite to Castlegar
October 3, 2022 – Exploring Castlegar
October 4, 2022 – Castlegar to Tunnel Stn
October 5, 2022 – Tunnel Stn to Coryell Stn
October 6, 2022 – Coryell Stn to Christina Lk
October 7, 2022 – Christina Lk – Day off
October 8, 2022 – Christina Lk to Grand Forks
October 9, 2022 – Grand Forks- Day off
October 10, 2022 – Grand Forks to Greenwood
October 11, 2022 – Greenwood – Day off
October 12, 2022 – Greenwood to Rock Creek
October 13, 2022 – Rock Creek to Little Dipper Hideaway
October 14, 2022 – Little Dipper to Beaverdell
October 15, 2022 – Beaverdell to Arlington Lk
October 16, 2022 – Arlington Lk to Hydraulic Lk
October 17, 2022 – Hydraulic Lk through Myra Canyon
October 18, 2022 – Day off
October 19, 2022 – Myra Canyon to Chute Lake
October 20, 2022 – Chute Lk to Penticton
October 21, 2022 – Penticton – Day off
October 22, 2022 – Day Off – Nature and Youth Presentations
October 23, 2022 – Penticton – Day off
October 24, 2022 – Penticton to Beyond Summerland
October 25, 2022 – Beyond Summerland to Osprey Lk
October 26, 2022 – Osprey Lk to near Princeton (KVR Broken here by floods)
 
  • Home for a Break – suffering from Exhaustion
November 3, 2022 – Hope to Agassiz
November 4, 2022 – Agassiz to Chilliwack
November 5, 2022 – Chilliwack – Day off
November 6, 2022 – Chilliwack to Abbotsford
November 7, 2022 – Abbotsford to Mission Bridge
November 8, 2022 – Mission Bridge to Fort Langley
November 9, 2022 – Fort Langley to Pitt Meadows
November 10, 2022 – Pitt Meadows to Simon Fraser University
November 11, 2022 – SFU – Day off
November 12, 2022 – Stanley Park to North Vancouver
November 13, 2022 – North Vancouver to Horseshoe Bay - Ferry to Langdale
November 14, 2022 – Day off
November 15, 2022 – Day off
 
  • Blogs recount our time in 2018 paddling the Salish Sea Marine Trail over 6 days in 2018 connecting Horseshoe Bay to the Sunshine Coast to Vancouver Island
November 16, 2022 – Sechelt to Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo – BC Ferries
 
Vancouver Island
 
November 17, 2022 – Nanaimo to Cassidy
November 18, 2022 – Cassidy to Chemainus
November 19, 2022 – Chemainus to Duncan
November 20, 2022 – Duncan to Lake Cowichan
November 21, 2022 – Lake Cowichan to Shawnigan Lake
November 22, 2022 – Shawnigan Lake to Langford
November 23, 2022 – Langford to Victoria Downtown
November 24, 2022 – Victoria to Mile Zero

Position Within the Larger Journey

 
We stepped into British Columbia in our fourth year on the Trans Canada Trail after completing the COVID-broken route in Quebec and trekking across Alberta. By the time we entered BC, we had a continuous line from Cape Spear, Newfoundland to our tenth province and the west coast, with the Pacific terminus a little more than 1800 km away.

 
This meant, for us, that British Columbia represents the final western extent of the Trans Canada Trail between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  With that said, the TCT in BC does not function as a culminating moment.  Instead, it brings together many of the elements encountered across the country.
 
Stepping into the province, we continued to navigate the Rocky Mountains we had begun in Alberta.  Similarly, there were vast tracks that recalled our crossing of the prairies in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.  While at other times, there are impeccable rail trails and defined trail corridors that offer reminders and glimpses of what the trail is and can be when fully realized.

 
Added to all of this is our one attempt at paddling a route in the Trans Canada Trail – our 6 days on the Salish Sea Marine Trail. Which provided a new, and for us, unique experience while crossing Canada.

 
 
At the same time, British Columbia stands apart in the scale and scope of the landscape.

 
For us, British Columbia was also the province where the Atlantic-to-Pacific line changed from ambition to completion. When we finally reached Clover Point in Victoria,  after 556 days of hiking over four years and having trekked roughly 14,000 km after leaving Cape Spear, the first part of our coast-to-coast-to-coast trek on the Trans Canada Trail had been completed. We reached Clover Point, Victoria, and the western terminus of the TCT on November 24, 2024.
 
That was not the end of the larger coast-to-coast-to-coast journey. The north still remained. But it was the end of something immense: the Atlantic-to-Pacific crossing across ten provinces.

 
For those looking to understand B.C. more fully within the Trans Canada Trail, this entry connects directly with our broader series:
 



 
 
Each offers a different perspective on the experience of exploring the TCT.
 

For Those Who Come Next

 
In total, British Columbia took us 49 trail-progress days spread across 70 calendar days in 2022, not including the week we went home to recover from exhaustion. If we include our earlier 6-day paddle on the Salish Sea Marine Trail, which formed part of our Trans Canada Trail route through coastal British Columbia, then our BC total becomes 55 active trekking days across 76 total calendar days to cross 1807 km on the Trans Canada Trail.

 
These sections of the TCT represent the largest provincial collection of pathways on the Great Trail.
 
If you are considering walking across British Columbia, know that it is possible to do so within a defined period of time. The route exists, the connections are there, and the province can be crossed in a continuous line from east to west.   This makes it a wonderful hike across a varied and stunningly beautiful region. 

 
If you are reading this because you are considering hiking across British Columbia on the TCT, whether for a weekend or weeks or months at a time, we hope this listing helps in some small way.
 
Not because it tells you what to do, but because it shows what was possible under a specific set of circumstances, at a particular moment in time.
 
Your journey will not look exactly like this. It shouldn’t. Weather, wildlife, wildfires, construction, health, timing, and luck all shape how the TCT, each province and Canada as a whole reveal themselves. Some days will go farther than planned. Others will end early. Some will feel almost effortless; others will ask more than you expected to give.  Some will end in the joy of that day’s achievements, others will end in doubt and tears. 

 
What matters, in the end, is not matching someone else’s itinerary, but learning how to move through this landscape with the willingness to be adaptable, leaving no trace and with care.  If this record helps you plan, adjust, or simply imagine your own path, then it has done what it was meant to do.
 
We wish you safe walking, open eyes, and the grace to take each day as it comes.
 
See you on the trail!

Location: Victoria, BC, Canada
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