Golden Ears Provincial Park: Gold Creek

If you are in Maple Ridge, BC (about 40 minutes east outside downtown Vancouver) and the skies are clear with a warm day you should head up to Golden Ears Provincial Park. Golden Ears Provincial Park encompasses approximately 55,590 hectares of undeveloped wilderness. They also offer 353 well-spaced campsites (one of the largest campsites in BC) which are only a short distance to Alouette Lake. They actually get their own private beach so traffic can be fairly minimal.

Golden Ears is also home to many trails such as the Golden Ears Peak trail and of course the more popular one Gold Creek. Gold Creek offers two trails, one that heads north towards the lower falls (about 40 minutes each way) and the other that travels a short distance east towards Alouette Lake.

The other day Robyn and I ventured over to the Gold Creek beach area. The trail is roughly a 20 minute walk through the woods and alongside Gold Creek, which is odd because Gold Creek is more like a river than a creek. The park also seems to be slowly fixing up the trail to work with a volume of people.

In a much earlier post of mine about Gold Creek I show a photo I took when the lake was high and flooding the Gold Creek beach area. As you can see from that photo (yes you will have to follow the link to view it) it looks fairly flooded.

From the photo I took above from a few days ago they have been filming something called ‘I Love Emily’ or something to that name. The crew member I asked wasn’t very helpful when I inquired about it though they all seemed friendly and allowed us to walk through.

The most interesting part that caught my attention was the rustic house they built. It looks like it was there for years. Though it smelled of new cedar, it definitely looked like it belonged there. I wonder if they will keep it there or tear it down after they are done. If they leave it I am sure it will be vandalized while unattended.

Once you get to the beach area of Gold Creek you are offered a spectacular view of Alouette Lake. The beach itself is a bit pebbly and the water isn’t the warmest but in the summer it is nice to dunk yourself into. It is also a spot where a younger crowd will gather since it is further away from the main beach at Alouette Lake where majority of families gather. The only thing you need to remember is that being a Provincial Park you do have to pay for parking, though when we got to the Gold Creek parking lot the ticket machine was covered up. Parking normally was $5 per day which is to help pay for park maintenance since the Government either stopped funding the parks or lowered the amount they received.