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Post by stroudg on Apr 24, 2011 16:38:56 GMT -8
Hey There Everyone! I am trying to plan a trip through the west coast of beautiful Vancouver Island. My wife and I are going to be in Tofino to begin our trip and need to work our way south to Bamfield to enter onto the West Coast Trail. Our travel days are the afternoon of a Sunday and we have a full Monday to travel. I was thinking it would be beautiful to be able to make the trip via ocean instead of land! If anyone knows of any options or travel ideas please let me know! Thanks Stroud
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Post by Low Light Mike on Apr 24, 2011 16:46:45 GMT -8
If anyone knows of any options or travel ideas please let me know! Thanks Stroud 2 questions: - what month ? - will you be taking a car, or are you traveling that portion without a car ? ----------------- If you want to go from Tofino to Bamfield, your only option is to privately charter a boat. How about from Ucluelet to Bamfield? - There is no service from Ucluelet to Bamfield using Lady Rose Marine. That company (based in Port Alberni) serves both Ucluelet and Bamfield in summer, but not on same trip/day. There is a private water-taxi from Ucluelet to Bamfield. - see this site: www.brokenislandadventures.com/taxi.html
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Post by lmtengs on Apr 24, 2011 17:24:52 GMT -8
If you want to take the car all the way to Bamfield, you could start at Tofino, work your way back to Port Alberni, and take the logging road to Bamfield, but that's only recommended if you have a 4x4 vehicle. If you don't mind leaving your car, you could drive back to Port Alberni and take the MV Frances Barkley (with Lady Rose Marine) to Bamfield. The trip takes a few hours by boat, and it docks right in 'downtown' Bamfield.
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Nick
Voyager
Chief Engineer - Queen of Richmond
Posts: 2,078
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Post by Nick on Apr 24, 2011 18:04:09 GMT -8
If you want to take the car all the way to Bamfield, you could start at Tofino, work your way back to Port Alberni, and take the logging road to Bamfield, but that's only recommended if you have a 4x4 vehicle. If you don't mind leaving your car, you could drive back to Port Alberni and take the MV Frances Barkley (with Lady Rose Marine) to Bamfield. The trip takes a few hours by boat, and it docks right in 'downtown' Bamfield. I don't mean to make this confusing... but that "logging road" is usually in very good shape. Definitely not a 4x4-only road. We've towed our 20ft trailer down there several times without any problems. However, the last time I was out there was when I did the WCT in 2006. On the topic at hand, I don't know of any commercial way of getting from Tofino to Bamfield by water. The open ocean is quite rough at all times of the year, which makes it not a hugely popular tourist draw.
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Post by lmtengs on Apr 24, 2011 18:16:21 GMT -8
I don't mean to make this confusing... but that "logging road" is usually in very good shape. Definitely not a 4x4-only road. We've towed our 20ft trailer down there several times without any problems. However, the last time I was out there was when I did the WCT in 2006. That's just what I'd heard from my uncle and aunt who drove the road. They did the drive during the Winter though, so that might have something to say about it? Back on topic again, I guess the best way to find out what kind of transport they have is to ask the locals themselves. Contact the Bamfield Chamber of Commerce here: bamfieldchamber.com/contact.html
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Kam
Voyager
Posts: 926
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Post by Kam on Apr 25, 2011 21:41:07 GMT -8
Large highway tour buses make the summer journey on a regular basis, so I don't think the road would be an issue.
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Post by lmtengs on Apr 26, 2011 14:31:32 GMT -8
Just out of curiosity, do we expect to ever see the Bamfield road paved? I think of it as a Sea-to-Sky Highway duplicate, of sorts, if it were to be paved.
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Post by Mike on Apr 26, 2011 15:25:38 GMT -8
Just out of curiosity, do we expect to ever see the Bamfield road paved? There probably isn't enough traffic to justify paving it.
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CFG
Deckhand
I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not sure.
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Post by CFG on Apr 27, 2011 16:55:48 GMT -8
So just for interests sake I have done a bit of math for you all as I am in the industry and have a little knowledge on this subject. Without knowing for sure i'm going to guess that the road to Bamfield is about 80km and has an assumed width of 12m. Thats roughly 1,000,000 sq m of roadway. The cost to purchase and place asphalt in that area would be somewhere around the $150/tonne mark. 1 tonne of asphalt will pave about 4sq m 100mm thick. (A minimum for this situation.) So 1,000,000 / 4 x $150 = Roughly $37.5 Million for just the paving of the road. No Prep work. Include the prep work and contingency and your probably looking at a $70 - $100 Million project. Interesting numbers to consider, knowing what other projects are underway in BC. See Here www.th.gov.bc.ca/highwayprojects/highwayprojects.htm
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Post by Scott on Apr 27, 2011 18:54:19 GMT -8
Just out of curiosity, do we expect to ever see the Bamfield road paved? There probably isn't enough traffic to justify paving it. True, but is that because it's a logging road? I'm sure a good road could be justified if you could open up the Bamfield area to increased tourism and development. If the road was better, the traffic would undoubtably be increase. Then the question is, do they really want to develop that area or keep it nice and remote?
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Post by Mike on Apr 27, 2011 19:54:04 GMT -8
There probably isn't enough traffic to justify paving it. True, but is that because it's a logging road? I'm sure a good road could be justified if you could open up the Bamfield area to increased tourism and development. If the road was better, the traffic would undoubtably be increase. Then the question is, do they really want to develop that area or keep it nice and remote? I think it's a combination of both of the reasons you listed. They're probably quite happy limiting access to Bamfield. Which is a good thing in my view, Bamfield is quite a neat community and going there gives one an opportunity to experience what it was like living on the coast in earlier days. It should be preserved as it is.
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Post by sgrant on Apr 27, 2011 22:01:57 GMT -8
There is no direct service between Bamfield and Tofino, other than by air. There is both a water taxi and a bus service between Port Renfrew and Bamfield. These services are mainly for people hiking the West Coast Trail, and looking up WCT websites or guide books will have links to these services. See www.trailbus.com(I personally prefer that people use the bus, since the water taxi pokes into every interesting place along the WCT, two times per day. This may be nice for patrons of the water taxi, but it diminishes the wilderness aspect of the trail for the hikers. Water taxis also use far more fuel than buses per person per unit of distance travelled.) To get from Bamfield to Tofino requires that you take a ship belonging to www.ladyrosemarine.com to Ucluelet. There must be some sort of a bus between Ucluelet and Tofino. So it will be a multi-leg journey that isn't the best itinerary. It would be better to drive to Tofino, then drive back to Port Alberni, then to Bamfield. We've heard there are vandalism problems at the Parks Canada trailhead, but we left our car there last year (after visiting Tofino) while we hiked the trial. We saw no evidence of car damage. Then you hike the trail and take the bus from Port Renfrew back to Bamfield. That's what we did last summer. Or, you could drive from Tofino to Port Renfrew, then take the bus back to Bamfield to start your hike. This means a longer drive, but you're back at your car at the end.
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D'Elete BC in NJ
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Post by D'Elete BC in NJ on Apr 28, 2011 4:01:05 GMT -8
So just for interests sake I have done a bit of math for you all as I am in the industry and have a little knowledge on this subject. Without knowing for sure i'm going to guess that the road to Bamfield is about 80km and has an assumed width of 12m. Thats roughly 1,000,000 sq m of roadway. The cost to purchase and place asphalt in that area would be somewhere around the $150/tonne mark. 1 tonne of asphalt will pave about 4sq m 100mm thick. (A minimum for this situation.) So 1,000,000 / 4 x $150 = Roughly $37.5 Million for just the paving of the road. No Prep work. Include the prep work and contingency and your probably looking at a $70 - $100 Million project. Interesting numbers to consider, knowing what other projects are underway in BC. See Here www.th.gov.bc.ca/highwayprojects/highwayprojects.htmIn my experience, given this would be a moderate use highway (logging trucks eat up roads), you will need to double that thickness (35mm/50mm/125mm + 150 to 300mm of subbase gravel). 100mm (35mm/65mm + 150mm gravel) is typical for commercial lots and maybe township roads with low traffic volumes. Just saying the estimate may be a little low...
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Post by lmtengs on Apr 28, 2011 14:32:08 GMT -8
So just for interests sake I have done a bit of math for you all as I am in the industry and have a little knowledge on this subject. Without knowing for sure i'm going to guess that the road to Bamfield is about 80km and has an assumed width of 12m. Thats roughly 1,000,000 sq m of roadway. The cost to purchase and place asphalt in that area would be somewhere around the $150/tonne mark. 1 tonne of asphalt will pave about 4sq m 100mm thick. (A minimum for this situation.) So 1,000,000 / 4 x $150 = Roughly $37.5 Million for just the paving of the road. No Prep work. Include the prep work and contingency and your probably looking at a $70 - $100 Million project. Interesting numbers to consider, knowing what other projects are underway in BC. See Here www.th.gov.bc.ca/highwayprojects/highwayprojects.htmIn my experience, given this would be a moderate use highway (logging trucks eat up roads), you will need to double that thickness (35mm/50mm/125mm + 150 to 300mm of subbase gravel). 100mm (35mm/65mm + 150mm gravel) is typical for commercial lots and maybe township roads with low traffic volumes. Just saying the estimate may be a little low... Do these estimates include wages for workers?
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D'Elete BC in NJ
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Post by D'Elete BC in NJ on Apr 29, 2011 3:24:20 GMT -8
In my experience, given this would be a moderate use highway (logging trucks eat up roads), you will need to double that thickness (35mm/50mm/125mm + 150 to 300mm of subbase gravel). 100mm (35mm/65mm + 150mm gravel) is typical for commercial lots and maybe township roads with low traffic volumes. Just saying the estimate may be a little low... Do these estimates include wages for workers? Typically, unit costing includes both material and labour, as well as overhead, profit, supervision, etc.
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