Disc golf at Quilchina Park a rough experience

Tee off

Hard core disc golfers

In my blog post "Queen Elizabeth Park wears the crown of accessibility", I wrote about the pleasure I had in meeting a group of disc golfers who are every bit as compulsive and serious as their ballsy cousins. The game is similar to golf and has a strict set of rules and code of conduct governed by the Disc Golf Association. My new friends were very accommodating and even gave me what I would need to get started: a driving and putting disc. The putter resembles a frisbee and floats as you throw. The driver is more like an Olympic discus built for distance. There are several other disc types permitted for play: left flyers, right flyers, tree dislodgers, rollers and more. Queen Elizabeth course is long, hilly, has water hazards and lacks pathways around the course.

My new buds suggested I try the Quilchina Park course as it was a shorter 9 basket (played as 18) with a perimeter path making for less travel over grass. So this week, inspired by the PGA Canadian Open event at the nearby Shaughnessy Golf and Country Club, I headed out to this west side city park to partake in a game of cheaper and less formal disc golf.  The views from Arbutus Ridge are stunning and you can see out to English Bay and beyond. Strict zoning laws in the prestigious Shaughnessy, Quilchina, Arbutus and Point Grey neighborhoods have preserved the view not as a corridor but as a complete panorama.

Quilchina is a First Nations word loosely translated as "many waters".  Originally a marsh area, even though it sits high above sea level, the land was home to the Squamish Nation but was given to the Canadian Pacific Railway by the Canadian Parliament as part of a 2,100 hectare parcel in 1888. The CPR used some of the land to develop the inter urban rail line, completed in 1905, to connect what is now Vancouver with Steveston. The rail line had stops higher up the Dunbar ridge in Quilchina at what is now West 37 Ave and West 41 Ave and ended in the Dunbar community.  The neighborhood was originally part of the municipality of South Vancouver when the inter urban line was completed in 1906. At that time only a few rich railroad brass lived in the area. Quilchina joined Vancouver in 1912 . The  area boomed until the Great Depression of the 1930s. In the 1950s the city used sand from the dredging of False Creek to fill in the boggy areas of Quilchena in order to build housing and schools for the post war baby boom. This plan also resulted in the end of the inter urban railroad line when it was replaced with trolley buses.

The neighborhood's main arteries are very accessible, but the side streets are not.  Curb cuts are patchy causing frequent long turn arounds, and cross ways across busy streets have nothing in the way of assistance.  I took the bus but I do not recommend bus travel to this location. Stops along the #33 and  # 25 buses leave a long scary trip to get to the park's one accessible entrance at North Valley Drive and West 33rd Ave. There is no parking lot and you must try your luck with side street parking.  However, the entrance does have a crosswalk and curb cuts.

You want to be in fairly limber condition before you tackle this park. It has a skateboard parkl, baseball and soccer fields, and a playground that is as inaccessible as the rest of it. The washrooms are marked accessible but by universal standards they are not as they have cramped space and very tight turns.

This off leash park is better left to the dogs

As my disc golf friends had promised, I did find the golf course and accessible perimeter path. But the day went to a complete waste thanks to the new City of Vancouver initiative to cut back on lawn care. This new practice is a hazard to the mobility and visually impaired. Dangerous dips and stumps, etc make any field a mine field. Even for my 4 wheel chair the grass proved challenging.

Hidden treasures from dogs and worse

I plan to raise this issue at the city's next Disability Advisory Committee meeting in September and will keep you posted. As far as disc golf is concerned, I hope to get back to it and will try other courses in the future. For a list of courses and to learn about the rules and how to organize tournaments, etc go to www.bcdss.bc.ca.

For information on the park or to contact the Parks Board and complain go to www.vancouver.ca/parks.