East Coast Trail (Maddox Cove/Petty Harbour-Cape Spear)
We decided to go from South to North on this section of the trail, leaving Cape Spear as our finish. Maddox Cove/Petty Harbour is a small community that holds a population of under 1000. It mainly relies on tourism now since the cod moratorium in 1992. Regardless of the history it is a beautiful location to begin a hike. This portion of the East Coast Trail is roughly 12 km over easy/moderate terrain. The temperature for us was -6 degrees celsius, but it felt much colder when you factored in the 60 km winds coming off the ocean.
Not the most ideal conditions to start.
Brook cutting through the trail.
Looking back at Maddox Cove/Petty Harbour just over 1 km in.
While continuing our walk it sounded like thunder below our feet. We made our way closer to the water and there was a small cave going under the land that we were walking on. The waves were crashing in the cave, slamming rocks around inside, and coming back out to reset and do it all over again.
It looks like someone cut out a piece of the land to make this almost flat cliff face.
This was one of the only steep climbs on the trail, and it isn’t really much compared to some of the others on the East Coast Trail.
Hiking in the winter has plenty of advantages. Not only is there absolutely nobody else on the trail, but you get to see things like this.
More frozen trees.
Typical Newfoundland weather. Blizzard one minute and sunshine the next.
This crevasse is about 3 feet to jump over but goes down about 20 feet from what we could see.
Attempt to capture a few waves.
The end of the trail is very open and Cape Spear is in sight.
Cape Spear lighthouse.
High winds = High waves
