Biking in North Van

It was a beautiful day today. There was a brilliant blue sky with hardly a cloud in sight. We decided to go for ride in the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve. The Seymour Valley Trailway is a 10-km paved path that winds through a beautiful diverse forest and crosses scenic creeks and streams. The Trailway features five picnic sites that include outhouses, benches, picnic tables and garbage cans. The Trailway is ideal for joggers, bicycles, strollers, and in-line skaters.

I left Paula, Bridget and Daniel to walk and ride around Rice Lake while I headed along the trailway. Bicycle books suggest that the 22 km round trip to the fish hatchery and Seymour River Dam should take about 2 - 3 hours. The paved path was great. There were families with young kids on their own bikes, as well as third wheel type tandems with young kids behind their parents. There were those hiking, biking, a woman pushing another in a wheel chair, those on in-line skates and quite a few skateboarders, including some who were lying down on their boards like a luge on the downhill parts.

It took about 45 minutes to get to the end of the trail. I decided to go down the hill to the river. It was flowing quite swiftly over the rocky bottom, and looked quite deep on the other side. I then rode up the hill a bit and turned off on a gravel trail for the fish hatchery. This path wound through an old growth forest with cedar, fir and spruce. The valley was carved out by glaciers in the last ice age. I got to the hatchery after crossing quite a few bridges over beautifuul clear water creeks to find that it was closed. As I was riding alone, I was whistling and watchful as I turned every corner. There are signs at the entrance to the par, and near the hatchery reminding us that we are in bear and cougar country, and to take all precautions.

I stopped at the picnic spot at the end of the trail and had a drink before heading back along the trail. Even though the trail is up and down all the way, it must be more of a downhill gradient on the way back, because I got back to the carpark in about 35 minutes.

The weather and scenery were great.