Pacific Spirit Regional Park (Camosun Bog)

It feels like every time we think we're going to a new park in Vancouver, we always somehow end up at Pacific Spirit Regional Park. The park is so big that I don't know how many of these updates I've done about the park where we’ve found yet another trailhead with an entirely different ecosystem. This week’s update is very much the same - we had actually stumbled upon it by accident several months ago and when we retraced our steps on the map to do the trail again, it was, to no one's surprise, at the Pacific Spirit Regional Park.

But if we’re being totally honest, we love this park for that exact reason. No matter how many times we come - and we’ve been here a lot - there’s always something new to discover. On this update, we started our trail around the Camosun Bog area along Camosun St. and 29th Ave. There’s plenty of street parking here, so we found a spot and made our way through one of the many trailheads that you can find along Camosun St.

About the Pacific Spirit Regional Park (Camosun Bog)

Type: Trail
Length: 2.5 km
Traffic: Low
Route Type: Multiple Trails

Markus checking out the Camosun Bog at the Pacific Spirit Regional Park

If you're familiar with the Pacific Spirit Regional Park, you'll recall that it is a park with several trails that connect with one another. Throughout the park, there are dozens of different trailheads and each one leads you into a separate part of the park with its own feel to it. The trailhead by Camosun St. and 21st Ave to the Camosun Bog is very unique of its own as well. When you go in, one of the first things you'll discover is, as its name suggests, the Camosun Bog. The trail becomes a wooden walkway that’s built overtop and allows you to cut through the bog.

The Camosun Bog has a self-guided tour along the walkway, which is lifted above the bog and far enough from the edges so your dog likely won’t try to reach it. It is a unique, yet fragile ecosystem that is home to many different species of plants and animals that you simply won't find in other parts of Vancouver. As you walk through the bog, you may find plenty of people standing off to the side admiring what they're seeing and pointing out things that are growing in there. It is a special place for teaching, though, if you have your dog with you, you may want to move through this area quickly so they don't anything that could be considered invasive to the bog.

At one of the others corners from where you came in, there's a path that connects with the rest of the trails in the Pacific Spirit Regional Park. More specifically, you'll come across the Camosun Trails and we usually like to take a right to go towards Queen Elizabeth Elementary School. You'll find that the path forks and they don't actually loop back together, but if you take one of these paths, it is possible to cut through Camosun Park and find the other trailhead to complete the loop.

Markus walking through the path at the Pacific Spirit Regional Park (Camosun Trail)

Since that trail's not long enough for us, keep heading south towards where the Camosun Trail meets the Top Trail. Going east on Top Trail will take you back to Crown St. where you'll head back up north towards where you started. You can either stay walking on the road or from Crown St., you can cut into the Camosun Trail again around 24th Avenue. This ends up being a larger loop, but it's a nice walk on a nice day.

During the times we’ve been at this part of the park, we’ve come across some campers and medical professionals doing some training, which we thought was interesting to see!

What we liked

The park's nice and quiet.
The ability to mix and match trails based on how far you want to go is nice. We like that about the trails at the Pacific Spirit Regional Park.
The bog is very unique although you’ll just have to make sure your dog isn’t doing anything that could be considered invasive to the bog.

What we didn't like

The number of cyclists perhaps, but even that's not too bad.

Our Recommendation for Reactive Dogs

We've done this trail twice now and it's not too busy with other dogs or people. The times we've come here have been relatively quiet so we would actually recommend it for that reason. Some of the paths were narrow, but since we didn't come across too many dogs, we didn't have problems potentially having to pass by another dog.

We did notice that there were a few cyclists both times. We're not sure if that was just a coincidence, but since some areas were narrower than others, cyclists and dogs on narrow paths doesn't mesh well.

Disclaimer

Markus is a reactive, but not aggressive dog. His instinct is to avoid other dogs and he may growl, bark or lunge if provoked, but will not attack. We normally do not have issues with leashed dogs when both sides are controlled, but we will be on guard when an oncoming dog is not leashed. There are varying levels to a dog’s reactivity and only you can decide if this park, trail or hotel is appropriate for your dog. Our visits generally will not include off-leash areas; most experiences shared on The Markus Project are within leashed or undefined areas.

Please remember that our past experience visiting a park, trail or hotel may not be the same as your experience at the same park, trail or hotel. We have no control of who visits the park and whether they adhere to park rules - like leashing their dogs on leash-required paths - or not. Please use your discretion with the information provided and with your personal knowledge of your dog’s reactivity when visiting these parks, trails or hotels.