Vancouver Island Trails

Just outside Courtenay BC there is the huge Strathcona Park, within the park is the Mt Washington ski area. Here you will find the Paradise Meadows trails, usually walked by snowshoers and cross country skiers, we decided to take Archer. This is April and there is still at least 4ft of compact snow on the ground, Archer had a ball, it wasn't too cold we were fine in just sweaters. This loop that we did was 2.7k in 50 minutes.

Paradise Meadows

This week we were in Victoria and decided to stop by Thetis lake on our way back up-island. This is a very popular and well used trail, there was a lot of traffic. The loop around the lake was exactly an hour, while we walked 3.4Km.

Thetis Lake

On your way to Englishman River falls, you can take a left at Englishmen River Rd, at the end of the road there is a trailhead for this fun one-way trail.

We walked for about 6K, one of the features during the walk was the Salmon hatchery, although we were out of season we'll check it out again in the fall.

Englishman River hatchery

Fossli Park trail is on Sprout Lake, west of Port Alberni. It was 40 minutes to get from the road to the lake.

The most difficult part was navigating the car down Sterling Arm rd, it was bumpy ride but well worth it, just keep your eyes peeled for the Fossli trail sign that will indicate the trail head, also it looks like there are two trails, take the lower one to reach beach. The trail was short and there was a little miniature park and beach.

Fossli park trail

The Colliery Dam is within the City of Nanaimo, the trailhead is easily found at the corner of Sixth and Wakesiah. It was a busy trail being in town and all, but there seemed to be a lot of different avenues that you could take, there was a quaint pond in the middle and some bridges that went over streams. We were able to do a 3K loop in just under an hour.

Colliery Dam

This dog path shares the same parking lot as the Ravensong Aquatic center right in the middle of Qualicum Beach. It's a fairly well used walking path by dog walkers, and joggers. It overlooks the QB ball fields. There a lot of little trails that intertwine.

Ravensong

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