The Crystal Falls trail in the City of Coquitlam follows the east side of the Coquitlam River to a small waterfall just inside the boundary of Pinecone Burke Provincial Park. It’s just less than 4 km one-way to the falls from Burke Mountain Pioneer Park.
There are some access issues that one of our members has reviewed with the City. Coquitlam planners say they haven’t come up with a detailed plan for long term access. Currently there is not much parking space and the residents on Karley Crescent just north of David Avenue don’t appreciate that many public users come to their street to park. There are no parking signs in some locations.
I found another City of Coquitlam park: Burke Mountain Pioneer that usually has more parking available since there is a soccer field and other facilities. There are hiking trails that connect this park to the Coquitlam River trail to Crystal Falls but the trails cross some private land that hasn’t been developed. I’m wondering if this park would be a better location for hikers to park.
A more detailed report is saved here.
Are there some Federation members that live in the City of Coquitlam that want to get involved in this access issue? Contact Jay MacArthur if you are interested in this issue.
Jay, the Wednesday hiking group (a descendant of the SFU Retirees’ Association hiking group, but no longer affiliated with SFU or the SFURA) has gone to Crystal Falls many times over the past ten years (most of those trips to Crystal Falls being led by me). It’s a nice trip with minimal altitude gain, good trail conditions, and total round-trip distance about 12 km the way we do it, not too much for geezers like us.
Here is what we do. We park near the intersection of Patricia Avenue and Graham St in Coquitlam, somewhat northwest of the intersection of Shaughnessy and the Lougheed. This is a residential area with low traffic and there has never been a parking problem or a complaint about our cars. Just to the east of where we park is the pedestrian/bicycle bridge across the Coquitlam River, where the TCT crosses the river but we do not cross there, yet. We go north along a trail near the west bank of the river, ignoring various side trails and eventually coming out on David Ave. We walk east on David, north on Shaughnessy, and pick up the south end of the Crystal Falls Trail at Karley Crescent. Those few hiking goup members wanting a shorter hike may park somewhere nearby, joining the group there, but few want to cut the trip down to 6 km total so this does not produce a parking problem. We continue north to the falls. On the way back. just east of where the road bridge along David crosses the river, we pick up the trail along the east bank of the river, and take it south until we get to the pedestrian/bicycle bridge across the river near where our cars are parked. This section has numerous unmarked trail juncions and you have to know what you are doing not to get lost.
Do you think there would be any problem doing this?
David