Cycling the Big Qualicum River Trail

By Keith  and Heather Nicol

At the hatchery

     It was a great decision to join the Evergreen Cycling group based in Courtenay since they have taken me on some great rides over the past couple of weeks. The usual routine is to go on a longer trip on Mondays and then take a shorter cycle route on Wednesdays. So on Monday June 3 Hugh Ney offered to lead a trip on the Big Qualicum River Trail which is near Horne Lake (a 40 minute drive south of Courtenay).  From what we could tell no one else had done the trip beside Hugh so it was new to the rest of us and people rode the usual mix of hybrid, mountain and electric bikes. 

   The trail starts at the Big Qualicum Fish Hatchery (coordinates 49 23.621 N and 124 36.964 W) which is well signed from the Horne Lake Road turnoff (head Northeast on Horne Lake Road) once you leave the Inland Highway. For those people that have the Back Road Map Book for Vancouver Island this bike route is even marked on the map on page 27. We love this book since it has shows lots of places to explore on Vancouver Island which are off the beaten track.

 (https://www.backroadmapbooks.com/).   

The route follows the scenic Big Qualicum River

   From the Fish Hatchery we basically traveled on a service road for the hatchery which is perfect for cycling since it is wide and follows right along the Big Qualicum River. The first 8.5 km are easy cycling on a gravel road adjacent to the river. At this point Hugh suggested we take a short detour to see a small waterfalls – take a left for the road to the Incubation Site and take the walking path for 20-30 meters to the river to see the small falls tucked behind a cleft of rock. 

Checking out the small falls behind a cleft in the rock

    After clicking some picture of the falls we returned to the main service road which now climbs much more steeply for just over 2 km to a junction with the Horne Lake Cave Road (coordinates 49 20.492 N 124 40.757 W) . Just before the Horne Lake Cave Road (HLCR) we needed to lift our bikes around a gate. From the junction we turned left and followed HLCR for a couple of hundred meters to a water works pull out which led to a short road and beach access  on Horne Lake where we had lunch. After lunch everyone else headed back the same way we had come in on while we opted to try some kayaking on Horne Lake which will be the topic of the another blog. (For info on kayaking at Horne Lake see http://keithnicol.blogspot.com/2019/06/kayaking-at-horne-lake-bc.html)  We highly recommend this bike route since it follows a lovely,shady river and ends at a scenic lake....what more could you ask?? For more information on the Evergreen Cycling group see: http://evergreenclub.ca/. 

Lunch at Horne Lake