Norvan Falls (Hike Review)

Norvan Falls - Lynn Headwaters Park - North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

HIKE RATING - 2 out of 10. The scenery was barely worth it. Do this hike for the hike, not for the view, because there's barely any of that.
DIFFICULTY - Moderate. Long return, but there's almost no up and no switch backs, so you can hike it really fast without having to stop and rest five thousand times. In fact, I didn't stop to rest at all, but then I'm a crazy person who usually leaves her party in the dust whenever she goes backpacking. I've been known to run the last five or so kilometres of a trail, in full pack carrying full gear and everything!
LENGTH - 14 km without transit, 16 km with.
TIME - Approximately 5 hours if you're going slow. I started at the trail head at 2:35 pm and was back at 6:15 pm, so I did it pretty fast.
TRAIL CONDITION - Fairly well maintained, well marked. Wear good hiking boots with gaiters if possible because of varying substrate and stream crossings.
DOG FRIENDLY! :D

TRANSIT DIRECTIONS - 210 Upper Lynn Valley from Phibbs Exchange.



Lynn Headwaters Park in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada has a trail system that to me looks kinda like a uterus. Today I hiked up that uterus of trails to Norvan Falls, which is situated right in the heart of the park. Since I took no photos, I thought the best way to remember this journey was to write about it, so here's my first ever journal about a hike - the longest solo hike that I have ever undertaken.

Yep, I went at it alone. That's not safe, but the fact is, other crazies with the gumption to keep up with me on the long hikes like this one seem to kind of be few and far between. If I was going to wait for a hiking partner to magically appear it would likely take forever, so I decided today that I'm just going to wing it and go alone.

Norvan Falls is situated North of North Vancouver in the before mentioned park and is easily accessed by transit... provided you're willing to tack on two extra kilometres of hiking to your journey. Car people can drive right up to the trail head on the Rice Lake Road, but for us vehicle-challenged folk, we have to walk there via the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve, which isn't too bad, but if you're less experianced it might be an issue. Luckily, I'm very experianced.

Norvan Falls is rated intermediate, but I wouldn't rate it that. While it's a long hike for kids (I wouldn't recommend it) there are no parts of the hike that I would really deem tricky to navigate, save for maybe a few stream crossings which aren't really dangerous (or deep) at all. My idea of an intermediate hike is some crazy bastard of a hike that has switch backs, steep grades and tricky navigation points, like places where the trail literally disappears. I'm at the expert level for trails though and I'm a bit bias after spending my childhood hiking in the Rockies every summer, so let's just say that in comparison to those trails, Norvan Falls is a cakewalk for me.

The falls themselves weren't worth it. I know, a lot of people on on this website probably haven't even ever seen a true waterfall, but I've seen quite a few in my time and after seeing those (many of which did not require a hike or if they did, one that was not nearly so long) Norvan Falls is kind of boring. I almost didn't even go up to see them when I got to the end of the trail because I have a habit of leaving bits of trail for myself for later, but I made myself go anyway. The falls gush out in a ten foot wide torrent that's only about thirty or fourty feet high from the muddy cliffs of Norvan Creek. There's greenery all around and it is pretty, but the problem is is that the forest is prettier than the waterfall and because of the cliffs you can hardly see the damn thing anyway. For me, the highlights of the trip were the trail head to Coliseum Mountain (the sign said 'allow 7 hours return to this point' and it looked so much more promisingly tempting than the waterfall - anything named after the coliseum has to be pretty awesome but I doubt I'll ever do that hike, considering that there's no camping allowed in Lynn Headwaters Park and I don't really fancy doing an eleven hour day of hiking unless there's shit tons of scenery for me to drool at), the scary ass suspension bridge over Norvan Creek that was only about a foot wide and was constructed of metal grating and wires and the Third Debris Chute, which was the trail's halfway point and which under normal circumstances (aka in the Rockies - yes I'm spoiled hiking wise) would have been incredibly boring. The 'chute' was basically just a wide open rocky area next to Lynn Creek from which had something that looked suspiciously like a closed off bear trap in it and a very good view of the mountains - which are something to look at!

If I was going to camp anywhere on the route, it would have been at the chute. Nice flat ground, close to water (but not too close) and not too far away from Norvan Falls, so it would be a good point to start from if I was going to hike to Coliseum Mountain.

To sum it up:

Norvan Falls is worth it for the hike, because there's very little grade to it and the hike up (if you take the Cedar Mills Trail) is interesting. For most of it, you follow Lynn Creek with occasional fleeting views of the majestic and dangerous snowy coast mountains over North Vancouver as you pass through lush new growth forest, occasionally over boardwalks. Growing alongside there is prolific growth of skunk cabbage, brush and small ferns. There's even a little bit of history in the form of rusted out axles and whatnot from the old Cedar Mill. Once you get to the Third Debris Chute, which looks a lot like an esker or a moraine, but is in a funnel shape. Something watery, possibly human made caused that a long, long time ago.

After the chute, the trail turns away from Lynn Creek up onto the flank of the valley and the forest growth gets older, the trees bigger. The thick, often mossy trees are mostly douglas fir and cedar with a thick canopy, so it's very shady along the trail, the sides of it lined with yet more ferns. Part of the trail is made up of corduroy, which is a type of road once used in logging, where lengths of tree are laid down side by side in a road. In the old days, loggers used to use corduroy roads to drag their logs down to the mills with teams of heavy horse and horses like percherons are still used in logging today. North Vancouver has a strong history of logging (the reason why there are few very large trees here today) but I'm not sure if the corduroy along the Norvan Falls trail has anything to do with that. Probably not, though it's a little weird for a trail. Wood happens to be slippery and thus not a very safe substrate to walk on. Still, the corduroy is interesting and as one continues north towards the falls, you have to make several stream crossings which are not at all hard (the water is extremely shallow so it isn't a threat and easily crossed without one getting wet) and the quiet, deserted forest is incredibly peaceful, a far cry from nearby Vancouver, which is the largest city in western Canada and the third largest in Canada altogether.

When you reach the trail head to Coliseum Mountain, there's only about a hundred more feet to go before you see the scary suspension bridge over the creek (I traversed it twice, there and back, scaring the bajeezus out of myself for no reason at all - I hate suspension bridges and this one was particularly precarious though definitely well built and firm, it's bridge deck was only a foot across and because it was made of steel grating, you can see straight through it to the rapids thirty feet below. I don't know WHY I crossed it, considering that the only reason to is to go off down another trail, but for some reason I did, though with my expedition pack I wasn't brave enough to go down the steep narrow little metal staircase on the other side.) The creek's quite fast and if you follow it up for about two hundred feet, one can reach Norvan Falls. Or, you can go across the suspension bridge a couple of times, snigger at it a bit, then turn back the way you came without seeing the pathetic set of falls which really don't feel worth the seven kilometres from the trail head to get there.

I think I need to start a hiking blog.

My times for Norvan Falls 2:35 pm - 6:15 pm - approximately 4 1/4 hours. 16 km. (Via Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve to Lynn Headwaters via section of Rice Lake.)