I recently hiked the White Pine Trail near Nanaimo. It’s part of the Trans Canada Trail near Nanaimo.
Years ago, I hiked from Haslam Creek up to Timberland Lake, a section of the Trans Canada trail. It was an easy hike, not a ton of interesting trail as most of it was on logging road. Timberland Lake at the end was beautiful. A bit of trash around from offroaders but the sun was out and reflecting off the water just right.
Around the corner from Timberland Lake is the White Pine Trail that continues up to Spruston Road. I left the lake after seeing one of the White Pine Trail signs and that was the last I saw of it.
In searching around for trails to hike next for Pack and Trail, I stumbled on the Trans Canada Trails again. I’ve been coming back from an ankle injury and needed some easy trails to wander. I headed out to check on the White Pine Trail.
The White Pine Trail
At the end of Spruston Road the trail signs start. The road is rough but there’s a bit of a pullout where you can park your car.
The trail starts out beautiful single track through the woods. It’s marked with orange markers on the trees with the odd “Trans Canada Trail” marker that was a bit bigger. Any major forks had a big blue signpost.
I spent most of the hike just taking in all the green around me. I’ve been healing up an ankle injury lately and was just happy to be on the trail at all, nevermind on a nice day like this. It was a bit cold though. Hard to operate the camera too much when you can’t feel your fingers.
The trail pops out onto the logging roads and continues to Timberland Lake.
The trail was well signed. At points the signs were off in the trees. I’m sure they were once very visible but now they’re off in the brush a bit. Any time I needed to know the direction though there was a sign right there. Just need to look.
Timberland Lake was pretty as usual.
I had the feeling we were being watched. Then out popped this little guy from the woods. The funny thing was that Della (my dog) was going crazy at a tree in the other direction because she thought she heard a squirrel. Not so much a hunter. I had plenty of time to capture some shots of the squirrel munching on something sitting on a log.
The Verdict
Would I recommend the White Pine Trail? The south end of the trail just before Timberland Lake is just logging road which isn’t very pretty but the single track on the north end was beautiful. Easy walking over well-maintained trail made for a good hike. The trail was well-signed aside from the few in the trees.
The Nanaimo River
I took a quick look down the trail that goes down to the Nanaimo River as well. It’s easy double track to hike. We didn’t get very far though. It turns into rough single track and heads back up into the woods. There were a couple of trail forks that probably head down to the river but I didn’t have time to follow them.