Hike/Trail Descriptions

In this area of my web site, you will find descriptions of the hikes which I have taken; since most of these hikes follow defined roads or trails, these descriptions are usually trail descriptions.

Some trails are confined to a single geographic area; others span multiple geographic areas. Some trails are part of the Cape Breton Highlands National Park; many are not. To make it easy to find a trail, the links at the left intermix these various kinds of trail groupings; each leads to a page listing the trails in the specified area(s). Since a given trail may fit into more than one category, it is linked from each applicable page. Hopefully, this organization will make it easy to find the hiking resources in a given area.

Most of the links at the left are still in red, meaning that they are place-holders for information to be added as I have the time and the inclination to write up the pages. So, revisit again from time to time to see what has been added. In the meantime, if you have not already checked out my photo essays, have a look as a number of them cover the trails which will eventually be described here.

About the Descriptions

Each of the hike/trail descriptions begins with a Summary table which, I hope, will be mostly self-explanatory. The following should clarify those points that may not be completely obvious:

“Trail Length” is always the distance from the start to the end of the trail. When “Loop” is “No”, this is normally half the hiking distance, as you will need to return the same way as you came (unless, of course, both ends of the trail are accessible and you put a vehicle at each end). When “Loop” is “Yes”, the trail forms a loop that will bring you back to (or close to) where you started; in this case, “Trail Length” is also the hiking distance.
“Reference Times” are the times given by a referenced source (which is identified along with the time). I am not sure how these were arrived at, but they often seem overly generous and I am not a speedy hiker (on a flat trail, I average about 4.8 km/h (3 mph), but slow substantially when even modest climbing is involved), so I assume they are not just hiking times, but allow time to stop and enjoy the scenery on the way.
“My Times”, by way of contrast, distinguish between “hiking time”, which is the time I spent moving forward, albeit ever so slowly uphill, and “clock time”, which is the difference between the times when I began the trek and when I ended it, which includes the hiking time plus time for pictures, rests to regain my breath when climbing, and time to enjoy the views, sometimes including having refreshments or a bottle of water to slake my thirst.

Following the Summary table, you will find an Extended Description section, which attempts to describe in detail the route the trail follows, together with my impressions and reäctions to the hike along with any events that may have occurred. My goal is to give you some of the flavour of this hike and to provide a good idea of what you will encounter on the trail.

Where an interesting extension to a hike occurs along a trail, a “Side Trail” section describes it. Information about a side trail is not included in the Summary table, though I have attempted to provide information on the distance, climbing, and time involved in the side trail description.

The final section consists of photos that I took during the hike. When I have already written a photo essay that covers the hike, the photos I used for it are not given here; in such a case, this section notes that this is the case and gives a direct link to the photo essay, which should be consulted, as the best shots I had at the time of writing the essay are there and those given here are supplemental ones that offer additional views that were not included in the essay for one reason or another. If no photo essay covers the trail, all the relevant photos are given in this section. For people on dial-up, as I was until 2007 November, the inclusion of these photos means that the trail description pages will load into your browser very slowly; just be patient.

As I hike these trails again in future years, it is my intention to update these trail descriptions with additional information and photos as appropriate.

I will be very interested in the feedback you have on these trail descriptions; I hope you will find them both helpful and useful.