When the weather is right and the kids are not in school, Michelle and I do our best to take our boys out for walks in the nearby woods of Lighthouse Park. With wellies on and lunch packed, we pile into our trusty (knock on wood) Westfalia and go, as the kids call it, “adventuring”.

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Jack and Pip know the trails pretty well, and though Pip is sometimes frightened of the occasional bird rustling in the bushes (the “Beware of Bears” sign doesn’t help), a smashing good time is had and the lads are primed for an early night. This usually means a bottle of wine for us, and a few hours of husband-wife quietude. A rarity indeed. Parks are multi-faceted in their awesomeness.

Anyway, it’s time for us to venture further afield from adventures in our own backyard. Once a week, we will go on a field trip and report back with photos and information of the green spaces visited in a new feature called: Know Your Green Spaces. The photos I’ve uploaded above are of this morning’s exploration at Lighthouse Park. As for next week, we’re totally open to suggestions…

Lighthouse Park info from BritishColumbia.com:

By a twist of fate, the dark background provided by a stand of old-growth rain forest on Point Atkinson’s shore in West Vancouver turns out to be its saving grace. If it weren’t for the contrast that it provides for a powerful lighthouse beacon built here in 1888, this primarily Douglas fir forest would have been logged long ago.

As it stands, Lighthouse Park contains the largest uncut, coastal-elevation trees in the Lower Mainland. And what a beautiful environment in which to view them. Waves crash against an outcropping of granite as the ocean breeze whistles through the boughs above. All this within a 10-minute walk of the parking lot. The trees are so large and, in places, poised at such precarious angles to each other that one walks past them with bated breath. The sight of an occasional bench hewn from the trunk of a downed predecessor helps to steady one’s nerve. Pause here under the shelter of their moisture-trapping limbs (some cloaked with an estimated billion or more needles) and marvel at the lushness of the understorey.

Follow along the seaside trail, part of a 3-mile (5-km) network of pathways, from the lighthouse to Jackpine Point, where you’re sure to find a smooth rock on which to pause again, beneath the polished, mahogany-coloured branches of a strawberry madrona, or arbutus as this broad-leafed evergreen tree is known in Canada. In late summer, paper-thin scrolls of bark peel off and drift with the tide, revealing a smooth, red trunk. Visit here on an autumn day to experience the Zen-like peace that pervades this oceanside scene.

Lighthouse Park is tucked away off Marine Drive in West Vancouver at the south end of Beacon Lane. To reach it, travel west on Marine from the heart of West Vancouver. The park turnoff is marked by a wooden sign; turn south on Beacon Lane and drive to the parking lot. There is regular bus service from Park Royal Shopping Centre to the park; take the Horseshoe Bay (#250).

An interpretive sign at the end of the parking lot provides a large map of the park and some natural-history notes. A concise map of park trails is also available here, complete with a suggestion for a self-guided walk to some of the more significant natural features in the park. For information, call West Vancouver Parks and Recreation, (604) 925-7200.

PS. The drive from downtown Vancouver takes about twenty minutes, but the views along the winding way (especially the last 2 kilometers) are well worth it.