Here I go again, trespassing on a fellow blogger's territory. This time I'm infringing on Tom Wilson's home turf in northern Cape Breton to report on the Hike the Highlands Festival that wrapped up another successful year a few days ago.
Tom is the chief organizer of the annual festival, but I noticed his blog has not been updated to include this year's event. That's because Tom left for Scotland a few days after Hike the Highlands to tackle a number of peaks there, including the formidable Ben Nevis.
He will undoubtedly post some Cape Breton Hiking pictures on his return, but in the meantime I'll show you a few of the hikes I managed to take in. This year's festival was the most successful in its five-year history and included 23 hikes, plus a number of workshops, over a 10-day period. Some of the more than 50 hikers logged more than 100 km each on the mountainous trails.
That's Tom Wilson photographing the view from the Skyline Trail, a 9.2 km loop trail in Cape Breton Highlands National Park.
This is a view in the opposite direction from the photo above. That's the Cabot Trail, on the right, winding its way up French Mountain. The Skyline Trail is one of the most popular, because the trail takes you out onto the spline of the mountain with unobstructed views in all directions. There's also lots of wildlife to be seen, including moose, bear, eagles and whales.
This view of the Cheticamp River where it empties into the Gulf of St.Lawrence is taken from Le Chemin De Buttereau trail, also in Cape Breton Highlands National Park. This trail has a couple of moderate climbs and covers a total distance of 4.6 km.
The Freshwater Lake trail is a leisurely stroll beside a small lake at the entrance to the National Park in Ingonish. It starts with an easy 2 km wheelchair accessible walk around one side of the lake (top) , but finishes with an optional short, steep climb to a lookoff (above) that gives of a great view of Freshwater Lake and Cape Smokey.
The White Point to Burnt Head hike is a 6.5 km ramble over a coastal trail that features stunning coastline and distance mountain views, not to mention a graveyard for ship-wrecked sailors and a guide to tell the story. The trail is accessed through the fishing village of White Point, just outside Cape Breton Highland National Park. The coast around White Point is great for kayaking too.
My final hike was to the top of Cape Smokey with this awesome view looking north toward the village of Ingonish and Cape Breton Highlands National Park. I conducted a photography workshop here and managed to loose four of my hikers, which is another story that need not be told. Suffice to say: "All's well that ends well" and everybody returned safely including yours truly with egg on his face.
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