Adventure & Outdoors
Ten flat kilometres of boardwalk and birding around a city lake where the ducks at Piper Spit have clearly been briefed.
Burnaby Lake Regional Park, Piper Spit entrance off Winston Street
More infoBurnaby Lake is that rare big-feeling nature walk you can pull off mid-city without a single calf-burning hill. The loop is 10 km of flat gravel and boardwalk through cottonwood and marsh, doubling as a free birding safari: herons in the shallows, turtles stacked on logs, and at Piper Spit a boardwalk so crowded with ducks it looks professionally staged. Bring water and a hat, since shade is scarce.
Start at the Piper Spit entrance off Winston Street (turn onto Piper Avenue and follow it to the end). Parking by the Nature House is small and fills fast, so the Avalon lot off Cariboo Road is the reliable backup. Walk out the Nature House boardwalk first, because Piper Spit is the showstopper, a low pier over the lake where ducks, geese and the odd heron will mob you for attention, perfect for a photo of the two of you mid-laugh. From there pick up the perimeter trail: it's a flat 10 km gravel-and-boardwalk loop with basically no elevation, so you'll actually finish a conversation instead of a climb. The north shore is the quiet, prettier half with mountain peeks; the south side runs nearer the highway. Don't miss the cedar boardwalk sections through the marsh where turtles pile onto logs. Short on time or shade? Do an out-and-back from Piper Spit to the rowing pavilion and turn around, or just loop the eastern half. There's no shade on the open dyke stretches, so pack water and time it for dawn-to-dusk, not high noon in July.
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