We have been wanting to visit Golden Ears Provincial Park for a while and yesterday it wasn’t raining, we didn’t have to go to Seattle on a Monday for once, and we packed up the kids and went! Ideally we are hoping to camp there sometime, but we wanted to scope it out first.

It was Veteran’s Day/Remembrance Day so the park was probably quite a bit busier for a Monday in November than normal, but we still had no trouble finding parking. I read online that sometimes during the peak summer months it can be really difficult to find parking for day use.

The park gates are open 8am – 5:30pm in the winter

Golden Ears Provincial Park is in British Columbia, Canada – pretty much straight north of Bellingham/Lynden. We took the Pacific/truck crossing border and it took us about an hour and a half to get there. We have Nexus passes (which I 100% recommend if you live near the border!) so the border crossing was really fast, even for a holiday! The entrance to the park AND parking is totally free at Golden Ears Park! I saw a sign that said camping is $5/person/night.

We got the kids some sweet new wool socks from Amazon – totally recommend!

We did two shorter hikes with the kids and had a blast! First we hiked the Lower Falls Trail which was 2.7km (1.6 miles) each way. The path was really wide and mostly flat packed gravel. I was wishing we had our Bob stroller with us because that would have been much easier than carrying the kids since it was so flat and wide! I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was wheelchair accessible though, because it did get a little bit hilly. Dogs are allowed in the park as long as they stay on a leash. The path followed along Gold Creek and ended at Gold Creek Falls.

The park has some massive tree stumps from old-growth trees!

We still had some daylight when we got back to the car so we decided to do the short (1km each way) North Beach Trail to Alouette Lake. The water in Gold Creek was a beautiful blue-green and we were so glad we were able to see Alouette Lake because it was gorgeous! We definitely want to come back and camp! We would take bikes and our inflatable raft for the lake next time.

Alouette Lake

The kids did great the whole time! They loved sitting next to the creek tossing rocks in the water. We brought snacks and their water bottles. Oliver’s one meltdown was solved with a dry diaper. Both kids happily walked extraordinarily slow for about 1/2km of the Lower Falls Trail then were happily carried the rest of the way!

We LOVE being able to get outside and explore with the kids when we can! It is so refreshing to be outside of hospital walls, letting the kids breathe fresh air and discover nature! We also only barely scratched the surface of what there is to see at Golden Ears Provincial Park! We can’t wait to go back!