Coastal Walking Trails in the Comox Valley- Seal Bay Nature Park

by Keith and Heather Nicol

   Seal Bay Nature Park has many walking, biking and horse trails and one section that we decided to explore on Monday, Sept 11 runs along the ocean. We had not walked on any of the trails on the north side of the park so decided to access these trails from Seacliff Road. There is a small parking lot at the end of Seacliff Road (49 46.039 N, 124 58.385 W) and there is a map of the trails mounted at the park entrance.  We walked for 240 meters before turning left, following the steep trail for 220 meters down to the beach. This section of the trail is well surfaced with packed dirt and small gravel but once you reach the shore it is typical beach walking.  The views of the mountains across Georgia Strait are impressive and the beach setting offers many places to sit and relax. We saw people who had brought their lunch down to eat on the shore and others that we simply out to enjoy the cooler weather of fall. 

 

The trail starts off in the tall trees before winding to the beach

      At the high tide line the beach material is fairly good for walking and includes sand, gravels and the odd section of cobbles which are harder to walk on. The surface is soft like much beach walking so although distances along the shore are not long the sand can be tiring to walk in. For those interested in a shorter section of shoreline we suggest turning up at the Don Apps trail which is 600 meters down the shore. This route up is easier than the steep route down since it switchbacks frequently making the grade easier.  The Don Apps trail winds through the tall douglas fir forest which has a lovely sword fern understory. From here follow the trail to the right to the car park at Seacliff Road. This makes a round trip of about 2.2 km which might be fine for families with small children or others that want a shorter hike.

 

Heather having a rest on one of the many large logs that litter the beach

      We decided to continue walking along the beach for another 550 meters where we noted another trail access from Seabank Road. To get back to our car though we opted to simply head back along the beach to the Don Apps trail and up to the car park. This route was 3.3 km and took us about 1 hour of walking with 15 minutes for a short rest.  We hiked this route at a tide of 3 meters and note that a couple of trees that block the shoreline might create problems for getting around them if tides were very high. We want to get back and check out some of the other Seal Bay Nature Park trails through the fall. 

Heather walking along the high tide line with the mountains of the BC mainland behind