The Whopper Dropper

This weekend I was invited to tag along on a hike to the Whopper Dropper, aptly named because it's located behind a Burger King and is a mountain bike trail with lots of drops!

 I had always known about the little road the went up into the woods behind the Burger King in Bayers Lake but had never gone exploring thinking it was a little sketchy, and admittedly walking up and getting into the trails it is, especially when met but old couches and beds and garbage. But a few more meters in and it was stunning. I could not believe that Halifax had such an amazing trail system hidden away behind a regular old business park.

This was a heavily wooded area with large open granite slabs. What I found to be the coolest thing was all the mountain bike equipment built into the trails, there were bridges and ramps and risers and everything you could possibly imagine! Kobi epically failed at crossing the first of the bridges, attempting to run full tilt across and not paying attention to the spacing of his paws, so he stumbled and got stuck in the bridge and got very scared of them.

 We came across a few more, some he could avoid and did, others he had no choice but to cross them. He did eventually figure it out which was a huge confidence booster for him! At one point we came across a large boulder with ramps leading up either side, all the other dogs climbed up without issue, Kobi took a lot of convincing to come up, but he did!!

I sadly was stupid and forgot to put my memory card back in my camera so I didn't get very good shots, just whatever I could get on my phone. That being said though the pace that we walked made it impossible to pull my camera out so I would love to go back another time for a more leisurely hike to get some better shots, and possibly even take a swim at one of the many lakes hidden away inside.

As a side note, this is a pretty intense trail system. If you're looking for maintained walking paths and smooth surfaces, this is not the place to go. Also if you have a terrible sense of direction, bring a GPS. I have a pretty good sense of direction and if I wasn't with people who knew the trails I would have very easily gotten lost because all the trails look the same after a while.

 If you're into hiking and have a couple of hours to explore, this is an awesome spot.  Also note that their is wildlife in the area, the other dogs all had bells on their collars to scare off any wildlife they might encounter and the darker coloured dogs wore fluorescent scarves or shirts to avoid blending into the scenery.