Peachland sits on a steep shoreline, which is good news for walkers: you can be on a forest trail five minutes after leaving the house, and on a ridge with the whole lake below you inside an hour. These are the walks worth your time, closest first.

In Peachland

Pincushion Mountain

The one to do if you only do one. About 3.6 km return with 245 m of climbing, and it earns every metre — the final section is steep and loose underfoot. From the top you get Okanagan Lake in both directions, Rattlesnake Island to the south and the West Kelowna benches to the north. Allow an hour and a half to two hours. The trailhead is at the top of Ponderosa Drive: follow it up from Highway 97 to the last hairpin, where a small parking area sits on the right just before the Chateau on the Ridge entrance. Best March to October, and go early on a hot day — there is no shade up there.

Trepanier Creek Greenway

The easy counterpart. A flat, well-kept path following Trepanier Creek through cottonwood and pine, roughly 7 km return and about two hours at a gentle pace. You pass the remains of an old dam that once supplied the town’s power. Shaded for much of its length, which makes it the sensible choice in July and August. Access is off Highway 97C.

Hardy Falls Regional Park

Closed 4–14 August 2026 while crews rebuild the spawning channel in Peachland Creek, replacing log structures put in during the 1980s with rock riffles. It reopens on 15 August.

Once open, this is the gentlest walk in town and the best one with small children: a short, nearly flat path crossing the creek on a series of little wooden bridges to a narrow waterfall. Come in late September or October and the creek fills with spawning kokanee. Peachland Creek is the third-largest stream-spawning kokanee habitat in the Okanagan Basin, so this is not a token showing.

The waterfront and Centennial Way

Not a hike, but the most-used path in town: a level walkway running the length of Beach Avenue between Heritage Park and 13th Street, with benches, beaches and the pier along the way. Good before breakfast, good with a dog, good with a pushchair.

Goats Peak Regional Park

Between Peachland and West Kelowna, a network of trails climbing through open ponderosa forest to bluffs above the lake. Quieter than Pincushion, and very nearly the same view.

Worth the drive

Myra Canyon and the Kettle Valley Rail Trail

The Kettle Valley Rail Trail runs roughly 650 km across southern British Columbia along the bed of the old railway. The section everyone comes for is Myra Canyon, high above Kelowna: about 12 km one way, crossing 18 restored wooden trestles and passing through two rock tunnels with the canyon dropping away beside you. Because it is a rail grade it is almost level the whole way, which makes it far gentler than the photographs suggest and a real option with children on bikes. About an hour and a quarter from Peachland, the last stretch on gravel forest road.

Mission Creek Greenway

More than 16 km along Mission Creek in Kelowna, roughly 35 minutes away. The lower 7.5 km from Lakeshore Road to Creekside Road is flat, shaded and easy going; above Hollywood Road it climbs into Scenic Canyon past Layer Cake Mountain and Pinnacle Rock and becomes a proper hike.

Okanagan Mountain Provincial Park

The big roadless block of country directly across the water from Peachland — the land you are looking at from the deck. It is reached by road from the Kelowna side, and offers long, rugged routes through terrain still recovering from the 2003 fire.

Before you set out

• Heat is the main hazard. July and August routinely reach the mid-30s and most of these trails are open, dry and south-facing. Start early, carry more water than feels necessary, and leave Pincushion for the morning.
• Check for wildfire closures from midsummer on. Trails and forest service roads can close at short notice, and smoke can spoil a ridge walk even when nothing nearby is shut.
• Ticks are about in the grass and brush in spring and early summer. Check yourself, and check the dog.
• Dogs are welcome on all of these on a leash. The yard at MacKenzie House is fully fenced, so a tired dog can also be left in comfort.