Campbell Valley Regional Park: Langley's 29 km of trails and history

Campbell Valley Regional Park is the green heart of south Langley: Metro Vancouver's largest park in the township, a working landscape where horse riders, hikers, and history all share the same trails. For Tri-Cities residents it is an easy drive over the Port Mann or Golden Ears Bridge, and a completely different kind of park experience from the mountains and lakes closer to home.

A rainforest that came back

The valley was not always forest. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, logging companies clearcut the entire park, hauling old-growth out along logging railways that wound through the property. The route of one rail line is still clearly visible along the Ravine Trail at the park's south end, and park maps mark the old grades.

The second-generation rainforest that regrew is now the park's defining feature. Walk the trails and you pass stumps of the fallen giants, some more than two metres across, still bearing the scars of springboards, the platforms loggers cut into trunks to reach a narrower section. It is one of the best places in the Fraser Valley to read the region's logging history directly off the landscape.

Trails for feet and hooves

The park holds 29 kilometres of trails, all unpaved. Fourteen kilometres are designated for equestrian use, making Campbell Valley one of Metro Vancouver's premier horse destinations, and the equestrian entrance on 208th Street serves a busy riding community. A one-kilometre loop is set aside for pedestrians and cyclists only, and the perimeter trail, built in 2009, opened more of the park to bikes.

There are two main entrances: the North Valley Entrance on 16th Avenue and the South Valley Entrance on 8th Avenue, both with drinking water. The South Valley Entrance also has a shelter and the Nature House, a small visitor centre near a pond and gazebo that offers occasional ecology programming.

Farmstead, schoolhouse, and speedway

The park's southern end preserves the Annand/Rowlatt Farmstead and the historical Lochiel Schoolhouse, both dating before 1924. The farmstead's fields and grounds are public, though a family occupies the farmhouse and its fenced lawn is private. The Lochiel Schoolhouse, which lent its name to a French immersion school that operated until 2001, opens occasionally by reservation.

Then there is the surprise in the park's eastern section: an old paved racing oval, maintained by the Langley Speedway Historical Society. Langley Speedway hosted local and even NASCAR racing events in its day, and the silent oval in the forest is one of the Fraser Valley's strangest and best heritage juxtapositions.

Every September on the third weekend, the park hosts the Celebration of Nature, a two-day fair at the Rowlatt Farm showcasing local artisans, food producers, and musicians.

Visiting from the Tri-Cities

Campbell Valley is about 40 minutes from Coquitlam via the Port Mann Bridge and 192nd Street, or across the Golden Ears Bridge through Langley. Trails are multi-use, so expect horses, and yield accordingly. The Little Campbell River winds through the valley, and the flat terrain makes the park friendly for families and casual walkers year-round.

The Little Campbell River valley

The park exists because of the Little Campbell River, which winds through the valley on its way to Semiahmoo Bay. The river's floodplain gives the park its gentle terrain and its rich mix of habitats: riverbank forest, wetland, meadow, and the regrown upland woods. That variety is why birdwatchers do so well here, and why the valley has drawn people for thousands of years before it was a park.

The flat valley floor also makes Campbell Valley unusually accessible. Trails that would be serious hikes in the North Shore mountains are easy rambles here, which is why the park fills with young families, older walkers, and riders of every level.

Planning your visit

From the Tri-Cities, the simplest route is Highway 1 over the Port Mann Bridge to 200th or 216th Street, then south to the 16th Avenue entrance, about 40 minutes from Coquitlam in normal traffic. The Golden Ears Bridge route through Fort Langley is a scenic alternative that pairs naturally with a stop in the fort village. Bring water in summer, expect mud after rain, and remember that horses have the right of way: step to the downhill side of the trail, speak calmly to the riders, and keep dogs leashed.

Nature in the valley

The valley's mix of river, wetland, meadow, and forest supports an outsized cast of wildlife for a park this close to the city. Watch for great blue herons and kingfishers along the Little Campbell River, owls in the deeper woods, and salmon moving up the river in season. The Celebration of Nature fair each September is the park at its most social, but the valley's real gift is quieter: it is one of the few places in the Metro Vancouver system where you can walk for an hour on soft trails and hear more birds than traffic.

A park with many doors

With entrances on 16th Avenue, 8th Avenue, and 208th Street, plus the Camp Coyote group camping entrance, Campbell Valley can be approached as several different parks. First-timers should start at the South Valley Entrance for the Nature House, pond, and the walk to the Rowlatt Farmstead; riders and mountain bikers will gravitate to 208th Street and the perimeter loop. However you enter, give the park a half day. It rewards lingering.

* Cover photo: waferboard, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0