
Current Trail Closures around Vancouver and Southwest B.C.
Last updated: September 7, 2023
On this page we do our best to keep a current list of all known trail and park closures in and around Vancouver. We’ll also use this page to keep track of any trail restrictions that are seasonal or temporary (ie, winter closures, trail maintenance, or B.C. Parks’ day-use passes).
If you are aware of a trail closure that isn’t listed below, please let us know by emailing info [at] outdoorvancouver [dot] ca or sending us a message on Twitter. You can also leave a comment at the bottom of this page. Thanks, and safe hiking!
Current Trail Closures & Updates
General trail closure and notice links
Metro Vancouver Parks – list of impacted parks and trails here.
B.C. Recreation Sites and Trails – See here for a full list of current closures across the province.
B.C. Parks Day Use Passes
For 2023, three B.C. Parks will required day use passes to access.
- Joffre Lakes: Day-use passes are required May 6 to October 9, 2023, for visitors to Joffre Lakes trailhead.
- B.C. First Nations “shutting down” access to Joffre Lake park for harvest celebration – BC Parks is currently not offering park passes.
- An article about the situation can be read here, and current park access details from B.C. Parks can be read here.
- Garibaldi Provincial Park: Day-use passes are required June 14 to October 9, 2023, for visitors to:
- Diamond Head (Elfin Lakes) trailhead
- Rubble Creek (Garibaldi Lake) trailhead
- Cheakamus trailhead
- Golden Ears Provincial Park: Day-use passes are required June 14 to September 4, 2023, for visitors to:
- Alouette Lake boat launch parking
- Alouette Lake South Beach day-use parking
- Golden Creek trailhead parking
- West Canyon parking
More details and information on securing your day use pass can be found here on the B.C. Parks website.
North Vancouver
- Capilano River Regional Park (Pacific Spirit Trail) – A section of the trail remains impassible due to landslide and it may takes months or years to restore.
- “Due to landslides that occurred in 2021, a portion of Capilano Pacific Trail between Keith Road and Moyne Drive is CLOSED. Please stay out of the area as it is extremely hazardous. A detour is in place; click here to see a map.”
Lions Bay
- Lions Bay is blocking access to public trails until Sept 18. Details.
Tri-Cities
- Buntzen Lake
- From May 16 until September 4, all vehicles, including busses will need to book a free parking pass before arriving at Buntzen Lake. Parking passes are available starting at 7 a.m. the day before your planned visit. There will be no first come, first serve parking, and those who arrive without a parking pass will not be able to enter. More details here.
- Swan Falls Trail – “Due to a rockslide, there’s no pedestrian access on Powerhouse Road between North Beach and Buntzen Dam. Swan Falls trail is also inaccessible to hikers at this time.”
- Read the current updates on the B.C. Hydro website.
- Colony Farm – “The western perimeter trail at Colony Farm Regional Park is closed until early 2022 to serve as a temporary staging and storage area for the Trans Mountain Expansion Project.” More details on Metro Vancouver website.
- Golden Ears Provincial Park
- The Spirea Nature Trail in Golden Ears was marked to be closed until June 2023. It is unclear if it has reopened yet. More from B.C. Parks.
Fraser Valley & Hope
- Othello Tunnels (Coquihalla Canyon Provincial Park )- CLOSED for the winter due to hazardous conditions and rockfall. The area sustained significant damage during the Nov 2021 storm. A timeline for re-opening is unknown. BC Parks has been slow to update their website, but you can always check here.
- Skagit Valley Provincial Park. Partially-closed for repairs after November 2021 flooding. Details here.

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upTowish
I’m glad to hear that the closure of the Vancouver Trail is being resolved. Thank you for keeping us updated!
C
Lighthouse Park and Whytcliffe are both open, as are their parking lots.
– June 23, 2020
Karl W
Thanks, I’ve updated the list!
Sandy
Will tennis courts in parks be opening?
Natasha
I’m wondering if you can post about what’s open. I’m having a difficult time determining where I can go since all the trails I used to go on or roads to them are closed. Can you be clear on where we CAN go? I think that would be really helpful. I’m not savvy in the loop holes here.
Natasha
I’m wondering if you can post about what’s open. I’m having a difficult time determining where I can go since all the trails I used to go on or roads to them are closed. Can you be clear on where we CAN go? I think that would be really helpful. I’m not savvy in the loop holes here. Alternatively, a filter on your database with closures would be great. Thank you.
Anon
Agreed. It would be amazing to know what is actually open for those of us that want to hike, but that don’t have an entire database of parks/trails in our brains.
Guiseppe
All trails are open unless specified in the list above. This includes trails in all BC Parks but they are set to open on May 14.
Melissa
I fully agree Natasha! While this page is helpful, I just want to know where I CAN go, so it’d be very helpful to have a page just on what’s open.
Karl W
There’s literally hundreds (a thousand?) of hikes and only dozens of them are off-limits at the moment… It would be futile to try and list them all here.
Your best bet is to use our hike finder (https://www.outdoorvancouver.ca/vancouver-hiking-trail-guides/) where you can filter down by the city you want to hike, if you want to bring your dog, if you want a waterfall, etc. and find a hike that you want to do. Then reference this page to see if its on the list of closed places.
For BC Parks, most are open now except in the lower mainland (not including Golden Ears, Murrin and a few others).
Almost every Metro Vancouver Regional Park is open.
Most other places are open, though some have closed their parking lots or have limited access by municipal by-laws.
If you want a specific recommendation, please comment here with what city are you in, what skill level/ difficulty you want, or what kind of hike you want to do and I’ll do my best to give you some suggestions.
Karl W
Alright I relented and wrote another post on some suggested open trails here :)
Hopefully it’s helpful for generating a few ideas of places to go!
https://www.outdoorvancouver.ca/where-to-hike-in-vancouver-during-covid-19/
Tomina
Whytecliff Park and Lighthouse Parks in West van are NOT closed.
Whytecliff Park parking lot is closed and
Lighthouse Park parking lot is closed.
washrooms being maintained!