Hiking the Lake Helen Mackenzie- Battleship Lake loop in Strathcona Park

By Keith and Heather Nicol

Walking along the Paradise Meadows trail

     Our daughter Kristie and her boyfriend Eric came to visit from Vancouver  on August 24 so on the 25 ^th we decided to do a hike they had never done before in Strathcona Provincial Park which lies on Courtenay’s  doorstep. This park is a real addition for people living here and we planned to see Lake Helen Mackenzie and Battleship Lake which fortunately form a looped trail. Looped trails are a bonus when doing any sort of outdoor trip since you get to see new terrain the entire way around. Most of the hikes they do in the Vancouver area are "in and out" type of hikes so this would be a nice change. The hike starts off at the Raven Lodge parking lot at Mt Washington and the trail is initially part of the boardwalked Paradise Meadows loop. Then it branches off and begin to climb. We opted to do the hike in a ccounterclockwise direction and the trail is mostly in the woods after leaving the more open meadows. It passes by a small pond and then you reach scenic Lake Helen Mackenzie. The trail is easy to follow and in good shape but we did have muddy sections due to the heavy rains a few days ago. 

Kristie taking at photo at scenic Lake Helem Mackenzie

 Lake Helen Mackenzie has several places where bedrock juts out into the lake making for great picnic sites.  We saw a couple of people swimming in the lake which I am sure would be refreshing on a hotter day. The trail parallels in the lake for a distance and then winds back into the woods until it breaks out along the shore of Battleship Lake. Now you can see the Mt Washington Alpine Ski Area in the distance. We had lunch at the end of Battleship Lake where there are some benches and picnic tables. There are outhouses at both lakes and also a wilderness camping area on Lake Helen Mackenzie. Over all it took us about 3 hours to do the trip including lunch and we measured the loop at around 10 km.  We saw lots of families on the trail and it was very popular on this day with a wide range of hikers. You don’t really get any visitas of the higher peaks in the area but it is a very pleasant hike with the 2 lakes as the highlight. We certainly recommend it.    

Battleship Lake with the runs of Mt Washington in the distance