I’d like to introduce you to another one of the gorgeous parks near Vancouver; Belcarra Regional Park. We are still exploring as much as we can locally as that is still the current advice here in BC. This regional park is 30-40 minutes drive from Vancouver; So it’s super popular with families, and you’ll find lots of people having picnics at the various beaches. We have never been excited by sitting on the beach so we explored a couple of the easy-peasy walks. We hiked along the Admiralty Point Trail as well as the Jug Island Beach Trail; So I’ll show you all them both.

Tsleil-Waututh Nation & Belcarra Regional Park

Belcarra Regional Park is located to the North East of Vancouver, directly North of Burnaby Mountain (but the other side of the inlet). The park has recently been acknowledged as the ancestral winter village of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation. You can read about the 2020 agreement between the Tsleil-Waututh people and Metro Vancouver here and here.  If you read those links, it sounds like this is a sad bit of history. It’s good that this has been acknowledged and hopefully the Tsleil-Waututh people will be more involved in the park’s future plans. 

Belcarra Regional Park Trails – the basics

Public Transit:
From Moody Centre Station, you can take bus the #182 to the Belcarra Picnic Area; Or #150 runs to White Pine Beach. If you’re driving there are multiple parking areas too if you prefer to drive there.
Facilities:
There is water, toilets, picnic shelters as well as boats for hire and seasonal concession stands.
Dogs: Fun for dogs, but they need to be on a leash.
How hard are the trails? We found them easy. The hike to Jug Island beach will get your heart pumping in a couple of places, but there were loads of kids on the trail. The Admiralty Point trail is an even easier option, but it is not quite as fun.

Belcarra Regional Park Trail Map

This is the recording of us doing both trails, Admiralty Point trail first, followed by the trail to Jug Island Beach.

Admiralty Point Trail

Admiralty Point Trail
Distance: 5.3 km 
Elevation gain: 80m

The walk to Admiralty Point is mostly through the forest, but there are quite a few places when you can look out from the trees to the coastline. I liked the view from Maple Beach along the way. This must be gorgeous on sunnier days.

Fabulous ferns and trees

I always love the trees in Vancouver’s temperate rainforests, and Belcarra Regional Park was no exception. We visited in May, so the ferns were the best part. The forest floor was completely carpeted in ferns. It was an overcast afternoon, but the light still managed to shine though the ferns to make the forest seem lush.

Admiralty Point

Once you reach Admiralty Point there are gorgeous views over towards the bridges of Vancouver as well as opposite to Burnaby Mountain.

I love how many sea creatures you can find it the rock pools at the beach. We found a bunch of sea stars under the giant rock in the photo above, and at the edge of some other large rocks. I love their bright purple colour.

This is the view in the other direction. You can get the idea of the trail from this view. It’s all rocky outcrops next to calming forest. Once you’ve made it to the end of the trail, you just return the way you came. Or you can do a loop back if you fancy a longer walk.

Jug Island Beach Trail

Jug Island Beach Trail
Distance: 5.1 km 
Elevation gain: 200m

The Admiralty Point trail was nice, but it was so flat, that it was a little too easy for us, so we decided to go on a second walk to Jug Island beach as well. We loved this trail even more!

There are some steps, and lot of rooty paths, so it’s fun to explore. Don’t worry though, the path is super obvious. Even if you don’t have a map you won’t get lost. There is some elevation gain, but just as your heart starts to get pumping it’ll be over. It’s not super hard.

Jug Island Beach

Once you reach the end of the trail, you get to see this lovely view of Jug Island. We went on a bit of a grey day, but if you go when it’s sunny, the greeny-blue water makes it look tropical.

We saw plenty of people in kayaks and paddle boards. It might be nice to swim here too, but there are lots of barnacles, so if you want to swim, bring flip flops or swimming shoes.

If you’re lucky, you might get to meet a posing goose at the beach too.

If you fancy an easy, family friendly walk near Vancouver, this is a good option. Or I have a bunch of other possible easy walks in BC, Canada. You can click on the green hiking symbols on the map below to find them.

Or, you can click on one of the pins below to save this for later.