The ice skating near Cumberland is awesome!

By Keith and Heather Nicol

      On February 11 with the school children in the Comox Valley getting a snow day we opted for

Keith checking out the ice

one as well.  We decided to head to Cumberland to check out the snowy trails and ice skating and were happy to report that both were in fine shape. But you need to act soon to check this out since warm temperatures are forecast for the end of week.  We drove through Cumberland and took the road toward Comox Lake. At “Jumbo’s Cabin” (a can’t miss log building on the left) there is a small parking lot.  From there we headed down a few meters to a trail that connects some of the ponds in this area. We could hear people shouting and first veered left to check out that pond and it had a game of hockey going on plus a couple of other smaller rinks that people were busy clearing snow of snow.

There were 3 ice rinks of various sizes when we were there

 The ice turned out to be hard and fast and it was great to go for an outdoor skate. There were a steady stream of people coming out to see how the ice was and many brought skates and shovels. After skating we decided to walk on the Wellington Colliery Trail which is just below the log cabin and there were even ski tracks in the snow from some skiers that had passed by earlier. We walked to another pond that looked like people had tried to clear for skating but had quit due to the amount of water on the ice. We took the trail a signpost highlighting the Japanese townsite that once was in this area before returning back to the car. Check this area out for its outdoor skating opportunities (when the weather cooperates)  and nice winter walking. Bring a shovel in case snow needs to be cleared. 

Heather on the Wellington Colliery trail