Hike: Lower Falls Trail
Location: Golden Ears Provincial Park, British Columbia near Maple Ridge. Located about 1 hour from Vancouver, BC and about 20 minutes from Maple Ridge, BC. Driving instruction available on Google Maps. The Trail head is easily located in the Gold Creek day use parking lot in the Golden Ears Provincial Park.
Distance: 2.7 km or 5.5 km roundtrip. Very little elevation gain.
Difficulty: Easy
Child Carrier Accessible: Yes- outdoor jogging or sport stroller friendly
Facilities: bathrooms at trailhead and camping nearby
Trail description: An easy wide gravel trail through forest along Gold Creek. About 20 minutes in there is huge opening with access to the river. A great spot for lunch and letting the kids have fun throwing rocks. After you keep on hiking to see the falls.
Our Adventure:
Our family did this hike with my parents. That is 3 generations all together on the trail. It was perfect because our toddler was able to hike part of the way and enjoyed picking up fallen leaves, twigs and branches. Very early on in the hike she started to get fussy. I turned to my parents and told them we had to stop somewhere so she could eat otherwise the fussiness would turn into a full blown tantrum. After walking a little bit further we were at the huge opening with access to the river. We stopped for lunch at the river and recharged. Our daughter loved throwing rocks in the river. In fact we all had fun skipping rocks and enjoying the sunshine.
Talk about Nature s Playgym!!!
After spending a lot of time at the river, and I mean a lot, we put our toddler in our carrier and kept on hiking to the falls. The falls were beautiful and we enjoyed the falling water. Then we turned around and headed back to the car. It was an easy and enjoyable hike to do with our toddler.
