*Video* Avatar Grove in Port Renfrew, BC
Over the long weekend, Mrs. Discover Sooke and I, made the trek west from Sooke to Port Renfrew to visit the much talked about piece of land with a few remaining first growth forest trees standing on it. This piece of land has been dubbed “Avatar Grove”, after the movie, for its large and gnarly trees.
It took us about an hour and a half to drive there from Sooke. The directions we got were really good and had no problem in finding this plot of land which has been slated for clear cutting at any moment.
Regardless of your stance on forestry and the industry, there is something to be said about any large first growth trees and just leaving them be.
We wandered around for an hour or so taking in the lush west coast rain forest and forest floors lush with ferns and moss.
There are two sides to the Avatar Grove. The upper grove and the lower grove. We managed to wander around the lower grove and Mrs. Discover Sooke is 8 months pregnant and the steep trek up to the upper grove proved to be a little hard for her to manage.
After we left, we decided to take the rest of the Pacific Marine Circle route to Duncan and Cowichan Bay to eat some dinner, then head back to Sooke on highway #14.
There were MANY people driving this newly paved route and many people camping alongside the route. On of the nicest stops we made between Port Renfrew and Duncan was the Harris Creek Canyon. The road follows along this river for many kilometers and we stopped a couple of times to take in the roaring water crashing through the canyon, which can be seen on this video. The sun was out and the weather couldn’t have been better for this trip.
Please enjoy.
Filed under: Latest News on May 24th, 2010
This looks absolutely fantastic! We have a visitor for a week and are going to go out to Avatar Grove to ‘explore’. Not sure about doing the circle route but it looks really cool. We are in East Sooke and want to discover our own back yard, so to speak. Thanks for posting this!
Doug
Enjoy, it is fantastic. If you are on Facebook, I’ve posted another photo there of the gnarliest tree in Canada at the Grove. http://www.facebook.com/discoversooke
Well, we did the Grove and actually found the climb to the upper grove to a bit easier – one of us has a bum knee and the lower grove was steeper and she had a few issues managing the trail. That being said, we had a great time and found the forest to be amazing, even with the logging helicopter flying back and forth overhead the whole time. Wear good hiking boots that have some grip and find yourself a walking stick. It looked like previous visitors left sticks at the beginning of the trails and we found them very handy! The gal at the Port Renfrew visitor centre was great and had loads of info. We found the map a bit easier to follow than the written directions, but maybe that is just us. Overall a fabulous experience that I would recommend to anyone that can handle the challenging trails. Thanks!