About “Goldstream Niagara Falls” (Niagara Falls)
“Goldstream Niagara Falls” seemed to us to be a rather obscure waterfall, which was surprising because it was barely a quarter-mile from a busy highway and it was within the Goldstream Provincial Park, which was a pretty built-up park complete with picnic tables, interpretive signs, a visitor center, and a campground. And as you can see from the photo above, this 47.5m tall waterfall more than held its own in the scenery department. However, without prior research to reveal the not-so-obvious trail to reach the waterfall, it was very easy to miss, and this was what made this waterfall all the more perplexing. Heck, even the name that we’ve associated with the falls could be confusing as it went by other names like “Little Niagara Falls”, “Niagara Falls”, “Golden Falls”, and even GoldStream Falls (that last name belonged to a different waterfall that also happened to be within the boundaries of Goldstream Provincial Park). Indeed, “Goldstream Niagara Falls” was an unofficial name (hence the quotes) that I noticed some people used to distinguish it from other waterfalls when doing Google searches. Certainly, there was a lot to be scratching our heads about concerning this waterfall, but there was no denying that it was possibly one of the more satisfying waterfalling experiences to be had on Southern Vancouver Island as it was the first waterfall of this magnitude on our epic 2017 Summer road trip where we had it all to ourselves as family!
Our hike began from a well-signed and well-established parking lot for the Goldstream Provincial Park Visitor Centre (see directions below). At the fairly spacious parking lot, there were lots of picnic tables and interpretive signs as well as several trails and buildings. From the far northern end of the parking lot, we walked to a four-way intersection, then took the leftmost path to continue walking in a northerly direction. The trail was very wide and flat, and it seemed like it was built for high volume traffic. It was flanked by tall fir trees as well as some openings revealing neighboring mountains and low-lying bush.
At each of the signed junctions, we continued walking towards the Visitor Centre (about 1km from the parking lot). We’d eventually get to a spot where a tunnel running beneath the Trans-Canada Highway was on our left (roughly 400m from the trailhead). Despite no obvious signs or hints indicating the way to Goldstream Niagara Falls, we knew that we had to leave the wide trail and walk through the tunnel (much to Julie’s disbelief). When we made our visit in early August, the tunnel was mostly dry. However, in wetter times (like in the Spring), this tunnel can be flooded and impassable. Under those circumstances, you’d either have to find your way up to Hwy 1 then make a dangerous crossing or you’d have to know to park in a pullout somewhere near here right off the southbound lanes (more on that in the directions).
After emerging from the other side of the tunnel, we then had a choice of doing a rocky creek scramble or climbing up to a fairly obvious-looking trail on our left that paralleled the dry creek. After roughly 200m or so, we eventually saw the Goldstream Niagara Falls. In order to get all the way to the bottom of the falls, if we were on the hiking trail, we’d have to make a steep but short scramble down to the creek bed. If we were already in the creek bed, then we could continue all the way to the falls itself. That said, we didn’t want to linger here too long since the large boulders fronting and surrounding the waterfall’s plunge pool was an indication that rockfalls do happen. In any case, after having our fill of this falls, we went back the way we came, and we managed to spend about 50 minutes away from the car (though a good chunk of time was spent just enjoying having the waterfall all to ourselves).
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