When I arose at 5h, clouds hung over the Meat Cove Brook Valley, but the day otherwise looked to be a good one, confirmed by the day’s weather forecast. After the same breakfast as yesterday at the Lodge, I headed up to the end of the Meat Cove Road above the campground, parked, and “saddled up”.
¹ Posted on Monday, 26 June, for Wednesday, 21 June. Most of the photos appearing on this page were posted on the next day, but have been moved here in their correct chronological order. I have also included a few additional photos which were not posted to Facebook.↩
I’ll soon be climbing on my way to Cape St Lawrence.
Where the trail begins at the end of the Meat Cove Road has an elevation of 66 m (217 ft).² The trail is actually the continuation of the Meat Cove Road, now suitable only for ATV’s and hiking, but once driveable to Lowland Cove and still sometimes locally called the Lowland Cove Road. Even though Google Maps still labels it as the Meat Cove Road, I think of it as the Lowland Cove Trail and will so refer to it here. A stiff climb of 34 m (112 ft) over 400 m (¼ mi) brings one to a sharp hairpin turn. A young guy passed me near the bottom of this section, moving briskly with the agility of a youth, and I never saw him thereafter; I, on the other hand, was puffing like a steam engine and forced to pause every few steps and to sit down on my three-legged stool at short intervals. The next kilometre (⅗ mi) is a stony section with fairly good footing that climbs rather more moderately another 34 m (112 ft) to what was once a gate precluding animals from descending to the village; it is now just a post and some boards lying trailside; the unnamed brook alongside the trail, which falls over the cliffs beside the Meat Cove Campground, has caused some serious erosion beside the gate, though the brook was quiet this day. As a gauge of my slow pace, it took me just shy of an hour to reach the gate from the car.
² Elevations and distances in the ensuing account are from the Trails app on my iPhone; distances are overstated by at least 15% and elevations are sometimes reported differently at the same spot, though usually only by a metre or two, but this is the best data I currently have available to me.↩
My trusty walking stick and the three-legged stool on which I rest are next to the eroded side of the trail.
200 m (⅛ mi) and a climb of 14 m (46 ft) brings one to a curve and the Meat Cove Look-Off Trail, currently unmarked except for a bit of orange flagging tape and overgrown enough it would be easy to miss it; that trail follows another unnamed brook up to the edge of the “Western Wall” with spectacular views of the village below and of Meat Cove Mountain across. By now, clear blue skies were overhead and it had become a bright sunny day; the cool breeze felt great, but there were some black flies as that stretch is kind of protected from the winds, which I could hear blowing overhead.
500 m (⅓ mi) more with a climb of 31 m (102 ft) brings one to the old Fraser homestead; in this section, the brook flows down the trail and has caused significant erosion, leaving rocks strewn along the trail and tricky footing maneuvering between the wet stream and the unstable and wet rocks. Nonetheless, it always feels for some reason an easier section because the open skies above indicate one is getting closer to the end of the climb. Yet, there is still another 35 m (115 ft) to climb over 500 m (⅓ mi) with switchbacks before the trail levels off and starts down, a point I think of as the “summit” even though the actual summit of the “Western Wall” is well off the trail at one’s left through the trees and yet higher still. My arrival there was at 8h10, making me three minutes slower than my last year’s time for the same stretch. Along the ridge at the “summit” (reported as 251 m on the way out, 266 m on the way back, and 262 m (850 ft) last year), a distinctly cooler and much stronger wind was blowing .
From this point on, the Lowland Cove Trail descends 12 m (39 ft) over 300 m (⅙ mi) to reach the junction with the Cape St Lawrence trail, marked with a sign and a piece of flagging tape on the right. Cell phone service was available and sometimes strong on the way up to the ‘summit”, but disappears on the other side. The Lowland Cove Trail continues descending to a tributary of French Brook as it heads south and southwest, while the Cape St Lawrence Trail also heads down, but in a northwesterly direction.
just below the summit of the “Western Wall”.
The next 900 m (⅗ mi) are on varied tread (mostly rocky and not great footing for a geezer, but with some nice grassy sections and in places a needly forest tread with exposed roots crossing it) and descend 75 m (246 ft) through the forest with occasional tree-shrouded views (which would be much better at leafless times of the year) , leaving one beside a small pond, whose outlet is into French Brook. Bunchberry was in bloom all along this part of the trail. It was also at this point I first heard the lobster boats in the waters off Cape St Lawrence, though someone with better hearing might have picked them up sooner. A good breeze continued to blow, keeping the flies away, and white clouds began to appear in the sky.
Another 500 m (⅓ mi) over mixed tread (some rocky, but most dirt or forest-y) and a descent of 13 m (43 ft) leads to a new short side trail to the pond at the base of Grey Mountain; it ends beside a tree ladder and an ingenious tree stand made of a metal lobster trap lashed to a tree to form a viewing platform; the view from the bottom of the tree stand was just fine, so I didn’t try climbing it. A short distance further one arrives at the pond access I remembered, but the views of the pond are actually better from the earlier trail, which also offers a glimpse of the highlands behind Lowland Cove. And a short distance from it, along a hard-to-walk rock and dirt segment, one arrives at the top of the Bear Hill Escarpment.
Two prominences, Bear Hill (locally often called Bear Mountain) and Grey Mountain, meet in a col at the top of the Bear Hill Escarpment, which runs along the base of both, formed by an ancient earthquake fault. In that col, a look-off at a vertiginous near vertical drop-off, widened by some trees downed during the past winter, gives one the first views of the coastal plain running from Cape St Lawrence to Lowland Cove, though only the portion from Cape St Lawrence to “Tittle Hill” is visible from the look-off. The area is forested near the Escarpment, but the edge by the coast is grassy and the automated light, the end of the trail, is readily visible. Directly across from the look-off is the red-blazed trail up Grey Mountain, unmarked this year by either a sign or flagging tape (see for an account of my hike there last year). An emergency reäpplication of bug dope was required at the look-off, where the black flies and deer flies somehow avoided being blown away by the good breeze.
seen from the the look-off on the Bear Hill Escarpment. At the far left is “Tittle Hill”;
the rightmost lobster boat is just to the right of the mouth of French Brook.
The green coastal plain sits just in from the water; it’s considerably wider than it appears from the look-off.
and showing the northern coast running to the southeast. The automated light is at the far left.
and showing the western coast; the automated light is at the right and the mouth of French Brook is in the centre.
and showing the western coast; the slopes of “Tittle Hill” can be seen descending
towards the Fox Den, near the centre of the photo.
to the automated light at Cape St Lawrence at the far right, seen from the look-off on the Bear Hill Escarpment.
The Cape St Lawrence Trail is adjacent to the diagonal line seen here, marking the course of French Brook.
Note the lobster boat at the far right off the mouth of French Brook.
this is only the upper half—the rest lies along the Bear Hill Escarpment.
And straight ahead, and down, is the Escarpment, which falls 60 m (197 ft) over a distance of 500 m (⅓ mi). It’s amazing to me it was even possible to build a road along the Escarpment, but somehow a route to the south along the flanks of Grey Mountain was built with mostly manual and animal labour, to allow access to the lighthouse. The upper section of the trail down the Escarpment is in relatively good shape, better than I had remembered, but the rest is steep and rocky (my notes have a rather coarser term for it) with very treacherous footing, at least for an old geezer, so full of “ankle-busters” that my left knee and leg were bitterly complaining well before I reached the bottom of the Escarpment.
For the next 400 m (¼ mi), the trail is still definitely downhill, but far less abrupt and with a quite decent tread for walking, with a short uphill climb at its end, that set me back to puffing. The final 1200 m (¾ mi) is resolutely but moderately down, dropping 64 m (210 ft), on an intermittently, but mostly, grassy tread, with short intervals of forest-y or rocks-and-roots footing. One now comes out on the grassy plain beside a dead tree with a very visible piece of flagging tape on one of its barren branches. I did not see the red stake that was quite noticeable the last time I was here and was later told that it was now hidden by brush which had grown up around it. The littoral was awash in wildflowers, with extensive stands of blue flag catching the eye, but buttercups and very small white flowers were also present in profusion and many others in lesser numbers.
seen from the trail.
A ramble of 500 m (⅓ mi) brought me to the base of the automated light, where I was surprised and delighted to discover three bars of LTE cell phone service. A strange split sky, the likes of which I had never seen, immediately took my eye: it paralleled the coast well out towards the Cabot Strait, with clear blue sky on the far side and a curtain of white descending to the water on the near side; it must have been a weather front of some sort and I was very disappointed the photos I took of it did not turn out better. As has been the case every time I’ve been at Cape St Lawrence, the winds were fierce and biting, enough so that I soon sought shelter beside the ruined cement walls of the old lighthouse keeper’s house, though the temperature was warm enough I forewent putting on any of the three extra shirts I had brought in my pack to fight the coastal chills I had experienced on previous trips. I took numerous photos of the glorious terrain, both with my iPhone and with “Big Bertha” on the Nikon and then had lunch of a sandwich, apple, and water just before 11h.
French Brook is in the depression in the foreground. Tittle Point is on the far side of “Tittle Hill”,
whose slopes are seen in the distance at the left.
and most noticeably at Hammer Rock.
Its predecessor was smashed in a storm a few years back
and a new cement platform was built to better anchor this one.
seen from the ruins of the old lighthouse keeper’s home.
this view looks across the tip of Cape St Lawrence to the northern shore.
Grey Mountain is at the right. The look-off is in the col between the two.
the distant highlands are inland of Lowland Cove.
“Tittle Hill”, running out to the point seen at the right in the distance,
hides Tittle Point, Lowland Cove, and the High Capes beyond.
seen from Cape St Lawrence .
Cape St Lawrence is the northernmost point on Cape Breton Island: only St Paul Island is further north in Nova Scotia and one needs a boat to reach it. There are places that simply exude magic and this is one of them, for me at least. The difficulty of reaching it, its remoteness, the great beauty of the highlands surrounding it, its rugged and rocky coast, the powerful forces of nature which have shaped it and continue to mould it, and the history of those who once made this wild place their home for part or all of the year are all constituents of the lively emotions I feel there, making this place irresistible to me since I first became aware of it. Even on the longest days of the year, my slow hiking pace these days means I can not spend very much time there, three to four hours at the most, but every second there is a joy which makes the arduous trip worth all the hardship of getting there and returning.
I was very sensitive to the difficulty of the return for me, so I restrained myself to just the short walk from the ruins of the lighthouse keeper’s residence to the mouth of French Brook, leaving my pack behind. I would dearly have loved to cross the brook and continue on behind “Tittle Hill”, circumnavigating the deep chasm of the Fox Den, and around to the other side: I still vividly remember the incredible awe and delight I experienced on my first trip when I came out to the view of the High Capes rising above the grassy plains of Lowland Cove, so thrillingly gorgeous it set my spine a-tingling! But, I had to be realistic: I’m no longer as fit as I was then (not that I was real fit then either) and it would surely take all the strength and determination I could muster to make it back to Meat Cove this day. Accordingly, I walked back to the trail head and sat there, sheltered a bit from the incessant winds by the adjacent hillside, marvelling at the views, basking in the vivid emotions of this wild place, and gathering up my strength.
the coastal plains at Cape St Lawrence and Lowland Cove harbour multitudes of wildflowers.
This is an extensive crop of blue flag (wild iris) between Cape St Lawrence and French Brook.
The rusted fixture along the back wall is a bathtub.
The orange ribbon on the tree behind the calf marks the start of the Cape St Lawrence Trail.
I figured it would take me six hours to make the return trip and I didn’t want to worry friends who had said they would come looking for me if I weren’t back by dusk, so I reluctantly waved good-bye to the Cape as I set off at 14h08. The roughly 240m (787 ft) climb back to the summit was as fully punctuated with stops as one of my long sentences is with punctuation marks, but they gave me a great chance to experience my surroundings on the trail. It did cloud over on the way up but no rain was then threatened, not that I’d have been able to go any faster if it had. The winds died to breezes, it became noticeably warmer (not solely due to my body temperature rising from the exertion), and the bugs required repeated applications of bug dope. When I reached the look-off at the top of the Escarpment at 15h37, both legs were just slabs of unfeeling flesh and I had another sandwich, a pear, and some water as I enjoyed one final view of the glorious scenery below and massaged some feeling back into my legs. I continued climbing while digesting my second lunch, not the best of ideas perhaps, and made many repeated short bouts of forward progress, finally arriving at the Lowland Cove Trail junction at 17h40 and the summit a quarter of an hour later. From there, it is all downhill and my lungs finally got a well-deserved rest. For my poor abused legs, and especially my calves, it was another story and it took me nearly as long to navigate the sometimes tricky footing descending as it did to climb up fresh in the morning. It was nice to have the cell service back again, just in case, but my progress was steady, if extremely slow, as I checked off the waypoints one by one: Fraser homestead, Meat Cove Look-Off Trail junction, animal gate, and hairpin turn. The usually fine views of Black Point in the sun seen from between the gate and the hairpin turn were hidden—the trees have grown their canopies and now pretty much hide them from the hiker. About 19h20, I finally reached the end of the Lowland Cove Trail and the start of the Meat Cove Road. A friend who lives nearby came out to greet me and offered to help carry my duffle the very short distance to my car, but I wanted to finish on my own, if greatly diminished, power, so, after sitting down and chatting a while, I continued on to the car, “unsaddled”, and gave a great sigh of relief at what I had accomplished. As exhausted as I was, I still felt great: I had done what I had set out to do and under my own steam with no twisted ankles nor other mishaps. Elation and euphoria best describe my state of mind as I rounded the corner by the campground and stopped for the photo of Black Point in the sun from the car window that I had expected to get from the trail.
and a walking stick is a great help.
This is not far below the “summit” of the “Western Wall”.
taken from the car at the Meat Cove Campground—I was way too tired to get out.
Back at the Lodge, I made and ate supper (two ham slices; potato chips; cucumber, tomato, and lettuce salad; store-made cole slaw; orange juice; and tea), the last of which I finished on the veranda.
There were four road workers staying at the Lodge tonight, but only three were there when I returned from my hike: the youngest of the road workers came back about dusk—he had been out to Little Grassy, where he had risked life and limb to clamber down the cliffs to a narrow beach below, and had had a really rough time getting back up; he said his legs were jelly, a feeling I could at that point completely relate to!
By this time, the wind had disappeared, replaced by a very light breeze and very ugly black clouds were now out over the Gulf; the temperature was +22 (72). Soon, I began seeing flashes of lightning out there, which intensified, and rolling claps of thunder became audible as the storm made its way over the “Western Wall”. It quickly grew prematurely dark and a hard rain started falling along with the now nearby sound and light show, driving me inside and soon to bed at 22h05. What a fantastic day and a glorious start to official summer 2017! Only in Cape Breton!
