Adventure & Outdoors
A 5.3 km loop through 300-year-old Douglas fir and a Garry oak meadow to Pickles Bluff, looking over farmland to Haro Strait.
LAU,WELNEW John Dean Provincial Park, Dean Park Road
More infoJohn Dean Park, properly LAU,WELNEW, is the best-rated hike on the Saanich Peninsula and one of the oldest parks in the province. The Slektain and Cy's Viewpoint loop runs 5.3 km with about 150 metres of climbing, which is gentle by hiking standards and still enough to feel earned. It scores 4.7 on AllTrails from nearly 1,400 reviewers. The payoff is Pickles Bluff, an open rock shoulder looking over Saanich farmland to Haro Strait and the Gulf Islands, reached through genuine old growth and a Garry oak meadow that fills with camas and sea blush in late April. Be warned that the summit itself is not wild: there is a radar dome and a cluster of towers up there, and several older viewpoints have quietly grown in.
Drive up Dean Park Road to the day-use lot, which sits a couple of minutes above the yellow gate and has an information shelter and a pit toilet. Follow the Slektain Trail and Cy's Viewpoint loop, about 5.3 km with roughly 150 metres of climbing, and budget two hours at an unhurried pace. Pickles Bluff is the one to aim for: open rock looking over farmland to Haro Strait and the Gulf Islands. Late April into May is the moment, when camas and sea blush come up through the Garry oak meadow. Two hard rules. The gate is locked from dusk to dawn, so this is a daytime outing and never a sunset one. And the road is closed to vehicles entirely from roughly November to March, which turns it into a long walk-in.
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