Hike NS offering guided tour of new Greenhill trail

Greenhill Provincial Park is considered an unsung gem, among the many provincial parks in Nova Scotia — especially with its new trail.

Hike Nova Scotia plans to get the park some much-deserved recognition with a guided hike on the Greenhill Trail, at Greenhill Provincial Park. The Sept. 24 event will be a tour of the newly completed trail that makes its way up the significant slope of the hill the park and trail are named after.

Fran Wyman, secretary of the Pictou County Trails Association, was one of the team of volunteers who helped create the new trail, exploring the landscape and eventually setting up a route for the trail to take.

“It’s exciting to get people out there,” said Wyman. “Hopefully the trail will be used a lot.”

Wyman said the purpose of the hike is just to introduce the newly completed trail to a wider range of potential guests. The trail is about 3 ½ kilometres — a distance she hopes will appeal to a broad base of hikers. So far, a handful of people have signed up, but Wyman expects more to be participating when the weekend of the hike rolls around.

“People often wait to see the weather conditions for the day, so there may be people who register closer to the date, when they see what the long-range forecast looks like,” said Wyman.

Recently, there was a ladiesonly trail building session held – a portion of three years of cumulative trail building work.

“So now, you can go from the park to the road. We wanted to make sure people knew about it,” said Wyman.

“The trail is an offshoot of Greenhill Provincial Park. It travels down the hill towards the Greenhill Road down below,” said Wyman. “It’s a very steep section of land.”

So steep, in fact, that Wyman said the hill was once used as a launching point for hang gliders, adding, “they use to jump off the hill and descend into the valley below. It’s quite steep, and there are also strong updrafts of wind there.”

The newly completed trail includes a number of switchback trails, so hikers can handle the steep slope. Wyman stressed the importance of hikers watching their footing. A portion of the trail also follows an old deer path, as well.

“It’s a bit challenging,” said Wyman, “but not undoable.”

The hike will be a walk down the slope of the hill — and for the more adventurous, a trek back up the same hill — a journey of about seven kilometres on foot.

Wyman noted that anyone not feeling up to the challenge of going back up the hill need not worry — there will be a vehicle waiting at the bottom to give a lift to their vehicle to anyone who needs one.

The new trail is a portion of the Cape to Cape Trail — one that will extend, when completed, from Cape Chignecto in Cumberland County to Cape George in Antigonish County.

“We’re not sure what the route will be, but we’re hopeful quite a number of landowners will give permission for us to complete that trail,” said Wyman.

The hike is scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m. Participants are asked to pre-register by contacting Fran Wyman at fran.wyman@gmail. com.

For more information, visit www.hikenovascotia.ca.