Coastal Walking Trails in the Comox Valley- Goose Spit to Curtis Road, Comox

By Keith and Heather Nicol

      In our quest to map out coastal walking routes in the Comox Valley we decided to try the beach from Goose Spit to Curtis Road. Goose Spit is a very popular area and many people go there to walk the beach along Goose Spit, go swimming, have a beach fire and launch sea kayaks and paddle boards. An earlier blog post highlighted the coastal walk around Goose Spit- https://keithnicol.blogspot.com/2017/09/coastal-walking-trails-in-comox-valley.html .  On July 6 under stormy clouds and threatening rain we decided to check out the beach walk to the east of Goose Spit which cuts underneath large cliffs of sand and silt to Curtis Road. The bonus of this walk is that it the backshore is not developed due to the cliffs and you only encounter houses near the Curtis Road exit. 

Keith climbing over a breakwater

 We parked our car at the first parking lot at Goose Spit near the picnic tables and interpretative signs. The coordinates are 49 40.017 N and 124 53.996 W. From there we walked to the beach and headed east under the cliffs. The first section is over cobbly beach and this won’t appeal to some people. We suggest wearing sturdy walking shoes to negotiate this part of the route.  We also encountered several breakwaters at right angle to the beach that are likely there to reduce the cliff erosion. However they do present a small obstacle to traversing the beach but you should be able to walk around the ends of the breakwater under many tides. We hiked this beach at a tide of 3.6 meters and had no trouble but you definitely would have to do some scrambling up and over the breakwaters at tides of 4 to 5 meters. 

After the breakwaters the beach walking improves

    After the breakwaters the beach becomes much more walkable and after 1.8 km you start to reach the houses along Curtis Road.  We found a beach access at 49 40.205N and 124 53.052 W and this short path leads to a small car park along Curtis Road.  You could park a car at this location – 49 40.730 N and 124 53.096 W or do what we did which was to walk back along the way we had just come. Total distance 1 way was just over 2 km so the return trip would be around 4 km and it took us about 1 hour with a short break.  We liked this walk for its views of the Beaufort Mountains, cliff backshore and views of Hornby and Denman Island in the distance.   You could easily continue along the beach to the east but now the back drop of houses makes for a walk with less “wilderness” appeal.  

Hornby and Denman Island are on the horizon