Trail: Houston Trail
Date completed: April 2021
Distance: 4.3 km
Elevation: Minimal
Location: Langley, BC
Distance from Vancouver: Approximately 45 minutes
Directions: Click here for Google maps
Adults: 1
Ages of Children: 3, 4, 6, 9, 13
Stroller friendly: Possibly, but there are some steep hills
Dog friendly: Yes, on leash
Bathrooms: Yes
Cell service: Yes
Jellybean Rating: 3/5
If you’re looking for a beautiful loop trail near the Mighty Fraser River and beautiful downtown Fort Langley then the Houston Trail is perfect for you!
Located in Derby Reach Regional Park, the Houston Trail the Houston Trail parking lot has some great picnic tables and funky washrooms to start your little adventure off right.
This trail is really well marked. There are posts from the parking lot that lead the whole way around the trail.
You’ll have to walk .5 km to get to the actual Houston Trail trailhead. The signs will lead you there, too.
Once you get to the trailhead you’ll have to make a big decision: Do you go left or do you go right? In our group, we usually do a majority vote. This time, we opted for left.
The trail is mostly flat…except for when it’s super hilly. There are about 5 or so steep hills that could be problematic for some (including the not-so-willing-3-year-old in the background here who is horribly disappointed that you won’t carry her up the hill and instead make her walk).
I’ll be honest; there isn’t a whole lot to see on this trail. It’s beautiful, but there isn’t anything that really keeps the kids motivated. We did find little shortcuts around corners on pre-made trails, interesting trees, and birds that kept their interest. Oh, and the baby slug. That got their attention for a while…
Halfway or so through the trail there’s another parking lot access point. There are washrooms here!
Immediately after these washrooms is a pretty impressive downward hill. This is a good opportunity to gain some momentum back to the car because it was around here that my kiddos started running out of steam.
This trail is a big accomplishment for kiddos. It’s long and has some hills that many adults struggle with! There aren’t a lot of checkpoints along the trail that keep the kids engaged so their level of interest is entirely dependent on cool things they’ll find on the trail and how creative you are;)
Jellybean Summary for Houston Trail
(Written by the 9 year old Little Adventurer in our group)
It was pretty and quite steep. I would not recommend strollers on this trail. We all agreed we would give it 3 jellybeans but as I said it was really nice, pretty and I loved the sounds and the birds and the smells. It was pretty long- about 2 hours. We were all pretty tired by the end of it, but, ya…nice place!