A hike in Cape Breton Highlands National Park

We had picked out a couple of hikes that we wanted to do while at Cape Breton Highlands National Park, but due to the weather, we only had one day that seemed nice enough to do a hike... so on Wednesday we drove over to the east side of the park (about an hour away from our campground) to do the Skyline hike.

We drove north from our campground around the north end of the national park. This was an overlook just a short distance from the campground, and looking back down the coast toward where the campground's beach area is located.

It was a gorgeous day, and we were a little concerned that the parking area for the hike might be full, but it turns out that Parks Canada allocates a LOT of parking, including parking for big rigs (we could have parked Gracie there).

Information about the park at the trailhead.

Information about the trail at the trailhead.

A map of the trail at the trailhead - note that the trail is a loop.

It started out very broad (nearly as wide as a two-way gravel road) but then narrowed to about 4' wide - still nice and a good surface.

Some pretty ferns with the sun on them under the pines.

An orange dandelion that we saw along the path - I've never seen an orange dandelion. (https://www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/plant-of-the-week/agoseris_aurantiaca.shtml- the range map on that page does not include Nova Scotia, but I think that's the plant that we saw)

When we got to the split in the trail to do the loop, we elected to go right...

... as we were going the part of the loop that is the "top" in this picture, pretty much everyone else just did the bottom part of the loop and to the spur out to the south end.

There was quite a bit of information about the area with the spur off the south end of the loop -- it was made up of a boardwalk...

This is hard to see, but it explains why the winds are so strong in this area.

The boardwalk is provided to prevent damage to sensitive plants that could be killed by being walked upon.

Again, hard to see, but tells about the building of the boardwalk.

The boardwalk started in an area with trees, but quickly proceeded into the open and down the headland.

We decided that this bench was as far as we wanted to walk down the boardwalk, as going down would mean we'd have to climb back up again.

It was very windy even in this upper area, to the point that it was not enjoyable to sit and see the view, so we did not stay long. We saw folks further down the boardwalk who laid down on the boardwalk to avoid being buffeted by the wind. Note that we both removed our hats -- others were having their hats blown off.

Carl coming back up the boardwalk along the headland.

We proceeded back on the part of the loop that we had not taken on our way out -- it appeared to us that the people "in the know" used the southern part of the loop and went out and back the same way. The other loop had some views, but it made the trail about 50% longer and didn't add a lot to what we would see... but we're glad we did it to get about a 5 mile hike completed.