Clayburn Creek Trail

Our daughter lived at that time, in a mountainside subdivision bordered by deep ravines, and there was a trail down one of those ravines (there was a road down the other).  The trail followed the route of an old narrow gauge railway that led to a brick factory in the village of Clayburn.

The entrance we followed to the walking trail goes right between two houses, and is easy to find.

Once you get there, it's a smooth gently-sloping trail, often 10 feet wide.  I could picture a small freight train going down the trail quite easily.

Here's a map of the Clayburn Creek Trail, winding down the ravine.  You're never far from the houses, but they are far above you through the rainforest.  The valuable clay deposits are uphill on Sumas Mountain to the east.  'Burn' is the Scottish term for a creek; you can see how it got its name.

As long as you're heading downhill it's an easy walk - until you come to those stairs!

I took it as an opportunity to learn a couple of western trees.  This is Western Hemlock, almost identical to Eastern Hemlock, but it grows so much larger.

And this is Western Red Cedar, similar to Eastern White Cedar, but also it grows so much bigger!

And this fallen leaf is the Bigleaf Maple, with deeply cut leaves that are almost twice as big as a typical Sugar Maple leaf.  This leaf was about 8" across!

It certainly gave me an introduction to the west coast rainforest.  There was thick moss everywhere!  I had never seen anything like it!

And then of course, the going downhill stretch ends and you're faced with those stairs.  They are very well built and quite attractive, but they go on forever!  If memory serves I think I counted 365 steps!

The trail doesn't go this far, but originally it went to the tiny company village of Clayburn, of which the Clayburn General Store is the most obvious evidence.  This was B.C.'s first company town, complete with houses for workers, a church, a school, the store and a doctor.  Several of these are provincially-designated heritage buildings today.  The bricks they made are found all over Vancouver, and were shipped worldwide.  You can look up the details on Google.