With its views of English Bay, the combination of paved seawall and Stanley Park trail, and the 2-kilometre climb up Rawlings Trail to the highest point in Stanley Park, the run to Prospect Point is a BRC favourite. Throw in a little club history by adding the extra lap around Second Beach Pool — or Dick’s Pond — in honour of BRC marathoner emeritus, Rich Widdifield, and then offer up the opportunity for some bad behaviour coming back over the Burrard Bridge and this 16-17k route truly becomes one of our signature runs. (Click here for more Stanley Park maps, links, and info.)
With the establishment of the Burrard Bridge bike lane in the summer of 2009, the original Prospect Point route has been altered and shortened slightly. Where we once headed over Burrard on the east side of the bridge, onto Pacific and then down Hornby to Seabreeze before hanging a right onto the seawall, we now take the west side of the bridge and down the stairs on the far side, run across Beach and through the Aquatic Centre parking lot to the seawall. It shaves off a little distance, but it’s a sacrifice we’re willing to accept to help make Vancouver more bike friendly… I just never thought ‘bike friendly’ would ever mean ‘runner unfriendly’.