Deep Cove

What The District Actually Publishes

Nothing, in terms of numbers. We read the District of North Vancouver's Deep Cove neighbourhood page, its hiking and cycling trails page, its park projects page and its notices index, in Q3 2026, and none of them gives a length, an elevation gain or a suggested time for the Quarry Rock section of the Baden Powell Trail. Every figure circulating online for this hike is somebody's own measurement presented as fact.

What is published, by BC Parks rather than the District, is the neighbouring section: the Baden-Powell trail east from Mount Seymour Provincial Park to Deep Cove runs 3.2 km, takes about an hour and involves 275 metres of elevation change. That is a different piece of the same trail, and it is the closest thing to an official figure anyone prints for this stretch of coast.

In practice, allow two hours for Quarry Rock and back from the village at an ordinary pace, with a steady climb on steps and boardwalk, and expect the last section to be busy on any dry weekend.

Why Search Results Still Say It Is Closed

The trail was shut for three years and the internet has not caught up. It closed at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to comply with the Provincial Health Officer's orders, because, in the District's words, "overcrowding on the trail and the outlook was a common occurrence, making it difficult to maintain appropriate physical distancing". It then stayed closed through infrastructure work in Deep Cove.

Then the weather finished the job. In June 2022 the District wrote that "bridge and stair structures along the trail were significantly damaged during extreme winter storms in November of 2021", with some structures on provincial land under a different ministry's jurisdiction. Repair lumber was flown in by helicopter in November 2022.

It reopened on Friday 17 March 2023: "The Baden Powell Trail between Deep Cove and Quarry Rock has reopened. Work is now complete and the trail is open to the public." No closure notice for it appeared among the twenty live District advisories when we checked, in Q3 2026, and it is not listed on the park projects page. Note that the District has never published a page saying it is open in 2026 in those words; the evidence is the 2023 reopening plus the absence of anything since.

Other Closures Worth Checking

One nearby closure has come and gone recently: the stairs and trail from Deep Cove Park up to Parkside Lane were shut for three to five weeks while the aging timber staircase was replaced, per the District's park projects log. Small closures like that are normal here, on a shoreline where everything is built on wood over rock.

The District's notices index is the only reliable place to check before you drive out, and it is worth thirty seconds on the morning of a visit.

Indian Arm, And Why The Water Is Flat

Deep Cove sits at the head of Indian Arm, the fjord that runs north from Burrard Inlet between Mount Seymour and the Belcarra side. The cove itself is sheltered on three sides, which means beginners can be on the water in ten minutes and stay on flat water for an hour, and it is why a paddling centre has operated here rather than on any of the exposed beaches closer to the city.

The regional tourism board describes paddling Indian Arm as a chance to see the mountains and wildlife from sea level in what it calls Canada's southernmost fjord. Harbour seals, eagles and sea stars are the usual sightings on the guided tour.

What Paddling Costs, And What Is Not Priced

Deep Cove Kayak Centre, at 2156 Banbury Road, publishes some prices and not others. The grid below is everything it does put a figure on, read from its own site in Q3 2026, in Canadian dollars with the US conversion at CA$1 = US$0.7244.

What it does not publish is the thing most visitors want: the hourly rental rate for a kayak, a paddleboard or a surfski. Every rental page says only "price dependent on duration selected", with the figure appearing inside the booking system. Its own site also warns that online reservation may be required and capacity is limited, so turning up on a hot Saturday without booking is a gamble.

The Doughnut Queue

Honey Doughnuts & Goodies has been on Gallant Avenue since 1996 and opens 6 AM to 5 PM daily, keeping regular hours on holidays and closing only on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. The regional tourism board's description is not restrained: "Honey Donuts is legendary, expect lines out the door when you visit this celebrity haunt."

The practical version: at 8 AM on a weekday you walk in. At 11 AM on a dry Saturday the queue is down the pavement, and it is largely people coming off the Quarry Rock trail. Doing the hike first and the doughnut second is not a plan, it is what everyone does, which is why the queue exists when it does.

The middle row is the visit this page is written for and the reason most people come out here. The short row is what a Deep Cove stop looks like bolted onto a Mount Seymour morning, which is the best half-day pairing on the North Shore. Note the parking column: at CA$3 an hour with a three-hour limit strictly enforced in the Panorama lot, a full day here is a bus day rather than a car day.

Rates, limits and dates below come from the District's summer parking page for Deep Cove and its parking demand page, and the bus routes from the same source; transit fares are TransLink's, effective 1 July 2026. All read in Q3 2026.

The Overflow, And What Is Left When It Is Full

Beyond the two main lots there are lots on Rockcliff Road between Naughton Avenue, which is four-hour limited, and Raeburn Street. Seasonal overflow parking opens at Cove Cliff Elementary and Seycove Secondary from 27 June to 7 September 2026, 9 AM to 10:30 PM, and the District says those "also fill quickly, especially during the weekends". Myrtle Park's two lots are the last resort and they fill too.

Street parking restrictions run 8 AM to 8 PM between 1 March and 31 October on most of the village streets, and some streets are resident-only all year round. The District's own recommendation is transit, cycling or carpooling, and given that its next sentence describes parking here as "a potentially time consuming and frustrating experience", it means it.

The District's own summer parking page for Deep Cove carries all of the above, and its notices index is the place to check for a trail or stair closure on the morning you drive out.

- No authority publishes a length or an elevation gain for the Quarry Rock trail. The District of North Vancouver has no figure on its Deep Cove page, its trails page, its park projects page or its notices index. [dnv.org, read in Q3 2026] - The trail was closed for three years, from the start of the pandemic until 17 March 2023, first for crowding and then because November 2021 storms destroyed its bridges and stairs. Repair lumber was flown in by helicopter. [dnv.org notices, archived captures read in Q3 2026] - Pay parking here is seasonal, 1 March to 31 October only, so a winter visit parks free.

Across the inlet at Lighthouse Park the meter runs all year. [dnv.org summer parking page, read in Q3 2026] - Large tour buses are banned from stopping or parking in the village or on the surrounding streets, with a CA$500 fine, which is why no sightseeing coach brings you here. [dnv.org summer parking page, read in Q3 2026] - Deep Cove Kayak publishes the price of its guided tours, its courses and its passes, but no hourly rental rate for a kayak, paddleboard or surfski anywhere on its site. [deepcovekayak.com, read in Q3 2026]

A Morning, Reached By Bus

Deep Cove is a morning, and the earlier the better. Everything that makes it difficult, the queue, the full car parks, the crowded outlook, is a function of the hour rather than the season. Arrive at 8:30, walk the trail, buy the doughnut on the way back and be somewhere else by noon, and the village behaves like a place with two hundred residents, which is what it is.

It is also the strongest argument on this site for using transit. The bus out here is one 1-zone fare, it drops you in the village rather than in a lot you cannot get into, and the District recommends it in preference to driving on its own website.

The North Shore Day

The clean version of a North Shore day without a car: SeaBus from Waterfront to Lonsdale Quay in twelve minutes, bus 239 to Phibbs Exchange, bus 212 to Deep Cove, hike to Quarry Rock, eat, and come back the same way, with the whole day's transport inside a handful of 1-zone fares. Add Mount Seymour in winter for the snow, or a paddle in summer for the water.

If what you actually want is the fjord itself rather than the village at its head, that is a boat, not a bus: the Indian Arm and Granite Falls zodiac runs three hours from Granville Island and covers water the trail only looks at. The full comparison sits on the day trips hub. Everything else worth pricing before you come is on the Vancouver guide.