One of the West Coast’s most popular attractions is about to become even more alluring.
The district of Ucluelet has partnered with the Wild Pacific Trail Society to infuse $20,000 of improvements into the Wild Pacific Trail.
The cost will be split down the middle with the district and the society each investing $10,000 into the project, which will focus on particularly tricky-to-reach sections of the Lighthouse Loop to bring stunning views to currently viewless areas.
“These viewpoints will provide additional private ocean viewing areas for trail users, alleviating some of the traffic on the main trail during the busy months,” wrote Ucluelet’s parks and recreation director Abby Fortune in a report submitted to council on July 14.
The work will establish new viewpoints in unique locations and will include the installation of a new observation deck, according to the trail’s innovator and manager “Oyster” Jim Martin.
“There will be up to 10 new viewpoints: six quite significant and then four trailside,” Martin told the Westerly.
“These are in areas where there’s no value, viewing or otherwise, where now there will be a significant increase in the value of the attraction simply by the addition of these quality viewpoints.”
He suggested improving the trail’s viewpoints will significantly improve its value.
“These add substantial and outstanding new viewpoints…Each one is an addition of a small percentage in their own right to the overall quality of the attraction,” he said.
“We’re not building a trail, we’re building an attraction and one of the things that attracts people most, and the most comments I get, are the number of lovely viewpoints. I refer to it as ‘streaming postcards.’”
He said the district’s support has been consistently solid since the trail’s inception in 1999 and this support illustrates an understanding of the trail’s value to the community.
“The district of Ucluelet has been absolutely wonderful in their enthusiastic support for our project all along,” he said.
“Everyone is very supportive and this is just an example of the cooperation that we have between the society and the district to make improvements like this.”
The work will kick off this fall and is expected to take roughly two months to complete.
Andrew.bailey@westerlynews.ca
