Youth group camping
What it actually looks like
What the children do
BC Parks offers a reduced youth group camping rate at the two group campsites in this park, Stoltz Pool and Horseshoe Bend. It costs $1 a person a night for a party of at least 12 people, with a minimum charge of $50 a night and a maximum of $150 a night. To qualify, the group has to be attached to a school, a recreation centre or a non profit youth organisation in British Columbia. The party needs at least one adult for every eight children and no more than one adult for every four. Stoltz Pool group site has 12 tent pads, two pit toilets, an open air shelter that fits four picnic tables and a fire pit. Horseshoe Bend sits beside the river among the trees with 11 tent pads and a shelter with a wood stove and picnic tables inside and out. Booking is through the BC Parks reservation service and can be made up to 12 months ahead. There is a boil water notice on the pumped water in this park.
Camp beside the Cowichan River in tents on prepared pads, cook around a fire pit or under an open shelter, and walk the riverside trails, watch for spawning salmon and swim or paddle at Stoltz Pool.
Good to know
Pit toilets, picnic tables, fire pits and a shelter at each group site, and drinking water only from hand pumps that have to be boiled first. There is no indoor building, so wet weather has no backup, and the road into Horseshoe Bend is not suited to anything large.
Getting there
Cowichan River Park