Great Island Trail

Another great March day, another great Cape Cod trail - The Great Island Trail in Wellfleet. Part of the Cape Cod Natural Seashore, the Great Island Trail provides several miles of trails through forests, along marshes and the seashore. Lauren and I spent 3 hours hiking the trails, and still only saw about half of what Great Island has to offer.

A seventy degree day in March was not to be wasted indoors vacuuming and cleaning the tub, no siree Bob. So it was a toss-up over desperately needed yard work or a walk on the beach. Tough choice. A 40 minute ride along Route 6 took us to historic Wellfleet, famous for its oysters and drive-in theater, as well as the 61% of its land area dedicated to the National Seashore. It was one of those early spring teaser days that tricks you into thinking winter is finally over. But us New Englanders know all too well that winter generally encroaches well into mid-Spring. Winter be damned, we’re going to the beach!

There were a handful of cars in the parking lot as a large family group celebrated fake summer in the picnic area. The trail heads off into a wooded area where off to the right is a monument/grave stone for an unidentified Wampanoag Indian woman on which people left offerings of sea shells, stones and flowers. We make a note that we should find a nice shell to leave when we returned. Hot summer smells of baking pine needles and salty scented air filled our heads and our spirits. Vacuum indeed!

This portion of the trail led us to a marshy inlet called “The Gut” which was separated from the Ocean by some very high dunes.

Dunes. The matted sea grass covered trail led to the wooded area which is the original Great Island, named so because when the Pilgrims first ventured there it wasn’t attached to the mainland.

Made up of mostly sand, like a lot of Cape Cod, the area has continually been reshaped by the tide. The trail forks here; one heads to an old Tavern site popular during the whale trade of the 1700’s, the other takes you into the center of the island through a forest of scrub pine on your way to Jeremy Point – a spit of land accessible only at low tide. We headed towards Jeremy Point making plans to return and hike trails we didn’t have time for.

Coming out of the wooded area we found ourselves in Middle Meadow Marsh which was also shielded from the tide by high dunes.

Picturesque Cape dunes. Sandy, grassy dunes. Neck. We decided here to circle back on the shoreline rather than the way we came. We thought it would be fun to run in slo-mo down the beach, but it was getting late, so we just walked a leisurely regular-mo down the sandy strip alongside relatively calm surf. P-Town was off in the distance, and way out where the sky met the water sat the horizon.

We unfortunately met with some flotsam on the beach – buoys, bottles and parts of Oceanic 815 (some may be Lost by that reference) had been washed ashore with all the storm activity of recent. There must be a merit badge or something for that clean-up effort. The sand was rippled from the tide, and we found several huge mussel shells, the remains of which were turning the sand purple in some places. A troller murmured in the distance.

We made our way back to the Wampanoag Woman’s grave and placed a perfect scallop shell atop a smooth stone another visitor had left.

 There were still trails left to hike, so we make plans to return hopefully with some of our adventure buddies. Bring plenty of water, trail mix or some portable lunch. It would be easy to spend a whole day here. Take a look at http://www.nps.gov/caco/planyourvisit/index.htm for more info and other trails within the Cape Cod National Seashore. And stay tuned as we bring you more of beautiful Cape Cod!