Coastal Walking Trails in the Comox Valley- Williams Beach

by Keith and Heather Nicol

    With our daughter Kristie (who loves beach walking) visiting from Vancouver, we were looking for a beach location that we hadn’t walked before.  So we scoured the map for some places that were close to Courtenay that we hadn’t visited. We used the Back Roads Map Book for Vancouver Island as our guide and settled on checking out Williams Beach which is about 16 km north from our house in Courtenay. The beach access is at the end of Williams Beach Road but for those handy with a GPS the parking lot coordinates are 49 50.136 N and 125 03.602 W and there is parking for about 6-8 cars. The parking lot is adjacent to Alders Beach Resort and the sandy beach that is in front of their location and which stretches south for over a 1km is well worth checking out. 

Kristie checks out some oyster shells

 This location is not as nearly as well known as nearby Miracle Beach so if you don’t like crowds this is your spot. We were there at a tide of between 2 and 2 .5 meters which was perfect for walking on the sandy stretch of beach since the sand is sandwiched between cobbles and gravels at higher tides and lower tides.  Certainly lower tides would be fine for walking on the sand but access to the water would be over cobbles/gravels so check the tides before you head out if you goal is trekking over a broad sandy beach.  For other many other coastal walks in the Comox Valley to try simply put Coastal Walks in the search bar at the left hand top of this blog post . Also if you want a great map source for beaches, trails, back roads etc.  check out the Back Roads publishing (https://www.backroadmapbooks.com/) . Happy exploring. 

There is a huge expanse of sand at Williams Beach (at the right tide)