Beaver Hills Biodiversity Trail

What a gorgeous place!

Beautiful walking trails! Very unique biodiversity here! So let’s keep it that way. What ever you pack in bring out. There are no garbage cans on the site.

Great trails but no beaver to be found

What a wonderful hidden gem. I'd never seen this trail before! Some friends introduced me to it and I really enjoyed the walk. Although the loop is only 2 km long, you can circle back to a 3.5 km long trek. The views are very pretty and the wildlife abundant. And there's a port-a-pot for life's necessities. Great area for hiking, wildlife watching, photography or just going on a picnic!

I think this is a very good spot to visit in the Beaver Hills. It was only made a UNESCO site in 2016 so I suspect few people even know about it. Certainly where I was there on a sunny but coolish day in early October 2018, I was the only car in the parking lot.

On the plus side, half of the trail follows near several large ponds so you often have expansive views of beaver ponds and the surrounding land. That is very unlike some other trails in the Beaver Hills where you are basically walking a path through thick bush, with your views limited to a few feet into the dense hazelnut canopy that grows beside the trail. Also on the plus side is the large spruce trees scattered among the aspen and poplar... in most other places in the Beaver Hills it seems there are often pure stands of aspen/poplar, plus a few scattered pure stands of spruce, but not a mix like you get at this location.

On the downside list is basically that there is a very minimal trail system here. Even if you hike it all, it only adds up to 2 km. A stroll really, not a hike. You can get around this by including this spot with the trails at the very nearby Strathcona Wilderness Centre, where you can find almost 10 km of well-maintained trails.