‘The only place I feel truly relaxed is when I am alone in the forest or mountains,’ hiking guide says of new book
Q&A with hiking legend Michael Haynes on Trails of Halifax Regional Municipality – Third Edition
1. It’s a glorious fall weekend. Which hikes should I take to get the best of the season?
People want to see colourful leaves at this time of year, so you probably need to be inland, instead of along the coastline, and preferably somewhere where hardwoods predominate. Kejimkujik National Park has a number of routes, easy to access, that should satisfy, such as Mersey River, Slapfoot, and Ukme’k. Many of the trails in the Cobequid Hills are excellent: Fairmont Ridge, Fitzpatrick Mountain, Rogart Mountain, and Gully Lake should all be excellent. Even the Harvest Moon Trailway, running from Grand Pre to Annapolis Royal, should provide superb views of the hills bordering the Annapolis Valley.
2. The earlier editions have been organized by location, while the new one is by guided by length and difficulty. What led you to make that change?
I have always organized routes by their length and difficulty, but have also tried to ensure that a variety of options were available in every part of the province. As this book features routes all within the Halifax Regional Municipality, dividing that relatively small geographic area into smaller sections seemed less helpful. And by removing the need to balance the number and type of route in each of the smaller geographic divisions freed me to use a different approach. So in this edition there is a “pyramid” of options based upon length/difficulty: 25 of the routes – half in the book – are less than five kilometres in length or slightly longer but easier, 15 are longer or short but a little more challenging, and only five are aspirational, the longest and most difficult. An additional five routes are featured as winter recommendations, the first time that I have done that. But I thought that people might want to get out somewhere fun and easy to access in the winter, and might have difficulties finding suitable locations.
3. You write that in 1994, you struggled to find enough managed trails in HRM for the first edition, so you bought topographical maps and found them yourself. Yet you suspect HRM has more kilometres of managed trails today than the entire province did back then. What has led to the growth of trails?
Much has happened in the past 30 years in trail development in Nova Scotia. In 1994 there were no wilderness areas, where today trails such as the Musquodoboit Trails, Crowbar Lake and Bluff Trails, just to name a few right here in the Halifax Regional Municipality – with each of these being longer than the longest provincial park trail in 1994 – may be found. The province owned almost none of the abandoned railways, and today there are the Harvest Moon, Rum Runners, and Celtic Shores Coastal Trail, more than 300 kilometres of managed pathway, along with many others. People began demanding more places to walk and bicycle safely, and the province, the municipality, and more importantly, local community volunteer groups responded with increased funding and a tremendous amount of volunteer effort.
4. You have a special fondness for new hikers and shape the guide to help them find their first few treks and build to some epic adventures. Why do you love novices, and what are some of the best starter hikes in HRM?
I was new to hiking myself at age 31, and couldn’t believe that I hadn’t experienced it before. Even when I began work on my first book in 1994, I was still a novice myself, and recognized that what I needed most was a reliable reference that would enable me to find places to safely begin. That first book started from the notes that I kept for myself and friends. Later, I was fortunate enough to marry someone who was from a very large urban area and from a culture where women rarely had the opportunity to try much of what I took for granted: she did not hike, didn’t know how to ride a bicycle, had never been in a canoe, and had only seen snow a few times. Helping her discover all these things, and in a way where she was comfortable and having fun, became one of the great pleasures in my life. So I have always thought that there had to be very many people like myself, who don’t know how wonderful exploring the outdoors can be, or like her, who have never previously had the opportunity to try. My books are to help them, and if they are lucky, maybe discover an entirely different way to experience the world.
5. You’ve been hiking Nova Scotia for forty years and your passion still leaps out of every description. What is it personally that draws you to the great outdoors? What does hiking add to your life?
I think what hiking adds to my life is that the only place I feel truly relaxed is when I am alone in the forest or mountains. I am quite socially awkward, and never very comfortable with people or in urban areas. Alone, away on a footpath, I experience a sense of freedom unobtainable anywhere else. And the infinite variety of nature always captivates and amazes me. I constantly marvel at the delicate beauty of early morning sunlight reflecting off dew on leaves, or can sit rapt watching the last ray of light disappear from a mountain sunset. Every time is fresh and vivid; each experience is intense. I really cannot explain why it moves me so.
6. Can you give us a good winter hike to store away for a bright cold day?
I am not going to recommend a specific route, because any trail looks marvellous after a fresh snowfall, especially if you rise early and are the first one to break trail. When I lived in Ottawa, I regularly rose before sunrise to be the first one on Gatineau Park’s snowshoe trails. Even at -20 or -25, it was so enchanting and invigorating. But with a carpet of new snow, anyplace looks new and like an adventure. Explore anywhere, but being outside, especially later in February and March when the sun is stronger, it is just a marvellous experience. Just remember not overdo it, either in distance or level of exertion. Winter walking and snowshoeing is more fatiguing; you will usually be slower and more tired than you would be covering the same distance at other times of the year.
Written By: