This past Sunday, October 18th, I went on a hike with my dad at Mount Douglas Park – PKOLS in Victoria. (Fun fact: my dad’s name is Douglas, just like this park.) We didn’t feel like doing too much elevation on this particular day, so we stuck to doing a big loop of the park (and not climbing to the top of the mountain).

Hike statistics from AllTrails

In 1 hour & 7 minutes, we covered 4.7 kilometres and 128 meters of elevation. Most of the hike was fairly flat, with 2 or 3 small hills. Also, as opposed to last week, it did not rain on us on this hike! The trail was a bit mucky and wet, but we wore appropriate footwear (boots) so we were fine. I was impressed by the awesome trail markers that Mount Doug Park has (green for easy, blue for moderate, black for difficult). They were helpful for us, as we stuck mostly to the easy & moderate trails on this hike. If you’re interested in seeing a detailed map on the different trails and their difficulty, click here. 

My dad & I on the trail

One thing that I particularly liked about this hike is that my dad & I chose to speak French during most of it. I’m finding that I have very few opportunities to practice my French right now in the PDP program – 5 out of my 6 classes are in English.

It was also interesting to dig a bit into the history of this place. From what I understand, WSANEC and Songhees call this mountain PKOLS or “White Head”. I also learned that several of the hiking trails are named after white settlers who purchased land in the area in the mid 1800s. For example, Peter Merriman, John Irvine & Sam Norn all have trails named after them.

Why you should do this hike: It’s a beautiful, lush forest with well-marked hiking trails (both by name & difficulty). This hike is accessible via public transit and there are also several different parking lots located around the park.

Drawbacks/be aware of: This is a very popular hiking spot, so it can be hard to find parking and there will be plenty of other hikers/dogs/joggers on the trail. If you are looking to be completely alone in nature, this is not the place for you.

Surrounded by tall trees at Mount Doug

Photo by Kosuke Noma from Unsplash.