Nature Vancouver offers a variety of field trips almost every weekend. Trips include birding, botany, marine biology or general nature walks; day hikes or short backpacking and snowshoe hikes. These trips are much appreciated by the membership. 

We are looking for more members to volunteer to lead field trips, specially birding trips. 

You don’t need any special nature knowledge to lead a trip – just an idea and enthusiasm for a trip to a particular area that you are familiar with, and a willingness to learn and share.  Experienced trip leaders will be happy to co-lead trips with you and provide mentorship. Please email info@naturevancouver.ca if you are interested. 

Field Trip Registration

Most of our field trips require pre-registration so that the field trip leaders can determine the number of participants and communicate other last minute info to the participants. As with all other Nature Vancouver events, we expect that all field trip participants to follow the Nature Vancouver Code of Conduct (SEE LINK) and to treat all participants and leaders with respect.

Our field trips are primarily for members. Non-members can attend up to three field trips before becoming a member. Non-members are not covered under our liability insurance and are required to sign a waiver of liability form. 

As Covid pandemic restrictions by the Provincial Health Officer (PHO) under the Public Health Act have gradually eased, Nature Vancouver has modified the protocol for field trip participation. Now that Covid test kits are readily available, we hope that all our participants will test themselves if they feel like they may be positive. If a participant tests positive up to four days after the field trip it would be courteous to let the field trip leader know so that they can inform other participants. Since there are still a number of respiratory illnesses that circulate in the community, it would also be courteous for participants who are developing cold symptoms to consider masking, social distancing or to defer attendance at the field trip.

Trip Difficulty Rating System

Nature Vancouver uses a field trip classification system by rating the level of difficulty and adding an estimate of the time to be spent on the trail. The trip leader is responsible for deciding on the appropriate classification in conjunction with the Field Trip Coordinator. If this will be your first field trip with Nature Vancouver, please review  Guidelines for trip participants .

The difficulty rating system is as follows:

1. Easy: easy path or road with minimal elevation change and minimal hazards. Examples: Lost Lagoon, Reifel Bird Sanctuary.
2. Moderate: trail with possible rocks, roots or other hazards. Moderate grade, occasional steep but short sections. Up to 200m elevation change. Examples: Norvan Falls, Pacific Spirit Park.
3. Strenuous: moderately steep gradient. 100 m to 500 m elevation change. Examples: Hollyburn Peak, Mount Galiano.
4. Very strenuous: constant steep gradient. 500m to 1,000 m elevation change. Examples: Elk Mountain, Rainbow Lake.

The expected duration of the field trip is added to the letter category to obtain a combined letter/figure rating. Example: A C6 hike will be a C hike, as described above, with an estimated time on the trail of 6 hours. The estimated time spent during a field trip does not include driving or other travel times.

Field Trip Documents

Please review the documents below as they contain important information about trip preparation, carpooling and transportation, associated costs, and more.