The Trout Lake Snake snakes east along several major Vancouver bike route corridors and swallows the lake itself. Winding along 2nd Avenue, Great Northern Way and the Central Valley Greenway along North Grandview Highway, the snake dives south on Lakewood Drive into John Hendry Park and along the west side of the lake.
The main route slips out of the southeast end of the park onto 19th Avenue and then slithers up Gladstone Street to the paved path that parallels the Skytrain line and on to Slocan Park.
The 10k Snake option completes a counter-clockwise loop of the lake before rejoining Lakewood and returning the way it came.
The head of the snake is a zig-zag tour of the Slocan Park neighbourhood with a few points of interest. Starting at the Slocan Park totem pole, the snake head loop exits the park south onto Duchess and turns left on Euclid, passing Ravine Street, where the neighbours have painted a salmon stream onto the road. Buried in a culvert beneath the street is Still Creek which emerges from its underground tunnel into Renfrew Ravine Park 200 metres to the northeast before flowing eastward to Burnaby. The route then snakes around past the intersection of Duke and Duchess before crossing Slocan at Norquay Elementary and then following Clarendon and 29th Avenue to complete the loop of the head.
For those worried about getting lost, there’s a simple snake head loop which follows Earles > Kingsway > Clarendon > 29th.
The snakes follows the same way back to John Hendry Park and finishes devouring Trout Lake by completing the loop on the east side of the lake before exiting on Lakewood and returning to Cambie the way it came.