You have not experienced a beautiful route until you run around Vancouver’s Stanley Park Seawall. This is the run to which I compare all other runs. Ten kilometres of seawall curve luxuriously around the park and along the shore with glorious views at every step. My photos do not do justice to the scenery that will be served up on your run.
I like to start at the Vancouver Rowing Club, the Tudor style building sitting over the water, at the park entrance. Head down to the seawall and go counter clockwise so the Coal Harbour marinas and downtown Vancouver towers are on your right. Around the first curve you will see H.M.C.S. Discovery, a naval reserve, and then the 9 o’clock gun with views up the harbour and over to the two convention centres and the cruise ship docks.
The next curve takes you around the Brockton Oval lighthouse and your views shift to the north shore of Vancouver and the Lions Gate Bridge ahead spanning the First Narrows. The neon yellow mountains in North Vancouver are piles of sulphur waiting for export and rising above them is Grouse Mountain.
The seawall continues passed the “Girl in a Wetsuit” statue perched in the water on the right. Lumberman’s Arch comes up on the left (note: bathrooms here) then the seawall winds under the Lions Gate Bridge. At this point you are on the wilder side of the seawall with wet, vertical rock cliffs beside you and West Vancouver’s Lighthouse Park in the distance.
The basalt stack of Siwash Rock sits just offshore and beyond is an incredible view of English Bay and the silhouettes of the Gulf and Vancouver Islands across the Strait of Georgia. In the fall and winter, when the wind and waves are up, you can be literally showered in spray as you run along this part of the seawall.
Past Siwash Rock is Third Beach with the Teahouse Restaurant above and then Second Beach with its pool jutting out in to English Bay. Hang a left here and pick up the Lost Lagoon trail which takes you back to the Rowing Club.
Or extend your ten kilometres to sixteen by continuing on the seawall past Second Beach and into the West End. You will run along English Bay and Sunset Beach until you turn around at the Burrard Street Bridge.
Run Stats
Run Stats
Distance: Approx. 10 km or 16 km if you go to the Burrard Street Bridge and back.
Elevation: flat
Surface: paved seawall with gravel trail around Lost Lagoon
Dog Situation: On a leash
Fun Race: James Cunningham Seawall Race at the end of October
Après Run
There are endless possibilities along Denman Street between English Bay and Georgia Street and beside the Bayshore Hotel. Fav is the Delany’s at the corner of Robson and Denman.
Copyright Kelly
