Adventures

Like Damien mentioned in his last post Milestones, Nova Scotia is not a hiking mecca. Our family has literally laughed our way through the hiking guide book descriptions of the most innocuous trails we've ever hiked.

Hugging the hillside, the trail winds right and left around uncharacteristically tight curves... you will cross a small bridge across a steep stream cascading down the almost vertical cut... the track is narrow and the climb substantial.

We walked this particular trail (Nictaux Falls Rail-Trail if you want to know) in utter disbelief of the guide book description. Never encountering the tight curves, steep stream, vertical cut or substantial climb. Artistic license to the extreme.

The treacherous trail in question

The lack of elevation and challenging trails didn't stop us from getting out. But to be honest, it did dampen our enthusiasm on a fairly regular basis. 

But this post is not a complaining post because there were a lot of good hikes. And really, who wants to listen to a complainer.

Here's a few photos (ok, a lot of photos) of our more memorable hikes from this summer.

Kejimkujik National Park

I wrote about these two hikes earlier this summer. Inland Keji, the main park wasn't really for us. Too flat, but would be great for backcountry camping with a canoe.

Our trip to the Seaside Adjunct was much more rewarding. It is a truly beautiful spot. 

Cape Chignecto

The longest and "most difficult" hike we could find in Nova Scotia. A four day, three night backpacking trip we took in June. We learned a lot on this trip, as Damien shared in Milestones. Some of it, like the horrific bugs, we would like to forget but it's all part of the journey. 

It was a great trail, lots of variety and the ocean views were amazing.

Green Bay-Broad Cove

This is really close to where my parent's live in Lunenburg county. Highly recommend as an easy, yet a bit challenging (stream crossing and marshy areas to navigate) for beginner hikers. Green Bay is a really beautiful little beach for swimming also.

Close to Halifax

Long Lake Provincial Park 

This trail is very accessible to Halifax. Most people don't go very far along and you will have to do a bit of scouting to find the path that goes along the lake. It's worth it though because the crowd thins out and even though you are just kilometers from the city you feel like you're in the wilderness (just ignore the cell towers and highrise on the horizon). The lake is great for swimming. 

Salmon River Trail

Close to Dartmouth and Lake Echo this is a lovely trail through a designated wilderness area. Much more remote than Long Lake, we didn't encounter any other hikers on our day hike there. The trails are well marked and maps can be found at each junction. 

Rail to Trail System

There is an extensive rail-to-trail system in Nova Scotia, part of the Trans Canada Trail System. Score one for the province. But for hiking it's kind of boring, as we discovered at Nictaux Falls.

Thankfully that hike was redeemed by a swimming river at the end. There's a lot of water in Nova Scotia and we tried to work that into every single hike we took.

One week instead of hiking we borrowed my parents bikes (for Damien and I to use) and went biking on a converted rail trail instead. It was fun at first but there was no water, and well... we missed our usual hike. 

Bluff Wilderness Trail

The Bluff Wilderness Trail is a Halifax area treasure. It was enjoyable enough to warrant a repeat visit. Our first visit was a simple day hike around one of the loops (there are a few loops you can do).

We returned the next month for an overnight backpacking trip that was memorable on many levels. Damien wrote about our milestones from that trip, mainly that it was the longest day distances we've ever done. The trip was also memorable because our car was broken into. In the end though, the crisis passed but the good memories of the trip remain.

Cape Blomidon

September brought cooler temps, (blessedly) less bugs, and blackberries! Cape Blomidon is a great day hike on the Bay of Fundy.

Cape Split

The last hike of the summer season was Cape Split. We went last weekend with my parents. The view was truly spectacular and the hike just wonderful. Don't be intimidated by the sign, it is not a stenuous hike.

If You Go

Nova Scotia is a very water beautiful province. It's a great place to have a canoe or kayaks. We have neither.

The most spectacular hikes are those along the water, especially the "Capes". Cape Blomidon (day hiking & camping), Cape Chignecto (backpacking) and Cape Split (day hiking). Cape Blomidon and Cape Split are moderate hikes (by flat lander eastern standards) and would be good for beginners. The views are excellent, the hiking relatively easy. 

It was a good summer. I definitely can't complain.

Renee and I are headed to the Rockies for a two week trip... get this... without the kids. Yep. That's right. Honeymoon v. 2.0.

Well, kind of anyway. As part of the trip we will also be attending Outdoor Retailer in Salt Lake City (thanks to Backpacking Light). We have never been to anything like this, so we are quite excited to finally connect some faces to names in the outdoor and minimalist footwear worlds.

We will be in Montana the last week of August and gradually meander our way to Utah in time to make the trade show which happens the first weekend in August. Are you going to be at OR? Do you live in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, or Utah (and somewhat along our path)? If so, we would love to meet-up with you. We are open to any of the following:

• A meetup for coffee, lunch, or whatever.
• A hang-out for a day, or a hike, or something like that.
• A couch or floor to sleep on, or a place to pitch a tent for the night.

Our schedule is pretty open at this point, so if you have any ideas let us know. You can use the contact form to get ahold of us.

We really hope we can meet some of you in person!

After the upheaval of our move we were downright antsy to resume our one day a week hiking routine.

Being totally new to the area (except for a few visits over the past couple years) we weren't sure where to start our Nova Scotia hiking adventures. So we started at Kejimkujik National Park and National Historic Site of Canada.

Kejim whatcha ma callit?

Lucky for us the locals and park staff just call it Keji. I can handle that. 

Keji is one of the two National Parks in Nova Scotia. The other is Cape Breton Highlands National Park. You can bet we are planning a backpacking trip to Cape Breton this summer, which may include the National Park.

Keji is only one hour from my parent's house. That's a bonus. But here's the thing - our family has cut our hiking teeth in the White Mountains of New England. We love a vista.

There is no vista at the flat, landlocked Keji National Park. There are however lots of amphibians and non-poisonous snakes.

To be sure, it is a beautiful natural place, especially if you can get on the water in a canoe or kayak. There are multiple backcountry camp sites only accessible with human powered water transportation. That's cool. But not so cool for a canoe-less family. 

The first weekend after arriving in Nova Scotia we went to Keji. We hiked 8 km (over 5 miles) and still had lots of energy to spare and a desire for more.

More view. More diverse terrain. More heart pumping climbing. But definitely not more bugs! Those we experienced plenty of.

We enjoyed the natural beauty and appreciated Keji National Park park for what it is - a place of cultural and historic significance best suited to exploring with a canoe. But we decided that inland southern Nova Scotia hiking is probably not our best bet for experiencing beautiful vistas. 

For that we need to head to the coast.

So that is what we did. The weekend after our inland Keji hike we brought the grandparents with us to explore the Keji Seaside Adjunct, as it's called. 

This time instead of marveling at all the toads, salamanders and snakes (the highlight of our inland Keji hike) we frolicked in the waves, viewed seals from the shore and feasted our senses on the almost-tropical feel of the Keji seaside beaches. 

Unfortunately a large portion of the designated trail has been closed for maintenance since October 2010. Much of the non-beach land is sensitive bog that requires visitors to use paths and boardwalks.

This closed trail really limited the amount we could explore at the park and so we walked the beach... until we got to the restricted area protecting Piping Plover nesting sites. It seems everywhere we turned there were restrictions of some sort. Oh well, welcome to hiking in a small eastern National Park. 

As beautiful as Keji Adjunct is we are anxious to put some miles on these legs and experience beautiful, rugged and remote nature. This poses a bit of a challenge for our summer in this eastern, mostly flat province. 

But there's adventures to be had here to be sure. And we're going to find them.

Sooner than later in fact. 

This week we are going for a four day backpacking trip (our longest ever) in Cape Chignecto Provincial Park. We'll be doing the Cape Chignecto Coastal Trail. According the website it's very challenging with breathtaking views. Sold!

We have determined that though we love the mountains, and to the mountains we'll return, we intend to enjoy the beauty of Nova Scotia's coast. It's not hard with views like this. 

Here's a video Damien produced of our day the Seaside Adjunct.

PS. You'll notice our kids running around in what appear to be tight black underwear. It is. We've written about the underwear our kids wear for hikes. It's a great system and if you do any hiking with kids near water (I sure hope you take your kids hiking near some kind of water) you'll want to read that post and consider your kid's underwear as being their swim layer also.