The Bluff Wilderness Trail is comprised of four stacked loops, which is great because you can do any length of hike that you want, and you can even change your mind partway through. The shortest loop is about 6km round-trip, and doing all four loops covers about 23km.

Camping is not encouraged, but it is allowed. Leave-no-trace (LNT) camping is the goal. There are only four individual sites in the area, and you can’t book these sites – they are first come, first serve.

The Bluff Wilderness Area is an on-leash area, and I urge you to read and respect the Trail’s policy on this.

It took us about 3 hours to hike the approximately 16km to the Crow site on Saturday (hiking clockwise around the outside of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd loops), and about 1.5-2 hours to hike back on Sunday. It was the perfect distance for our first backpacking camping experience. You can read more about our hiking and camping experience at the Bluff Wilderness Trail here.

How to Get There

From Bayers Road in Halifax, take exit 1A for NS-103 toward Peggys Cove. Continue onto NS-103 W. Take exit 4 for NS Trunk 3 toward Hubley/Timberlea. After 0.5km, turn right onto NS Trunk 3 E (signs for Timberlea). The parking lot will be on the right. You can also check out this map.