Trail Hound

The Best of the Outer Cape: 2011

New Year’s Eve brings reflections of the passing year: the best, the worst, trends to welcome and trends, like the Kardashians, to which we hopefully bid adieu.

So what were Trail Hound’s highlights of 2011?  No boring rehash here – there’s one delightful geocache published in September that puts together a stellar sampling of the Outer Cape all in one five-leg multicache.  The name, logically enough, is “A Great 5-leg Multicache from Wellfleet to P’Town.”

With a few simple calculations from interpretive panels and local sites, the cache takes the intrepid traveler from the wonders of Wellfleet’s beautiful kettle ponds, to the Truro dunes overlooking the Outer Shore, to a landmark lighthouse, to the charm of vintage Provincetown.

For the geocaching tourist or anyone who wants to revisit the best of the Outer Cape, this cache provides a fine roadmap.

Have a safe and healthy New Year.

Happy Trails.

 Images, from top:

Long Pond – Wellfleet

Truro Overlook

Highland Light

Carpe Diem

Warning: Soft shoulders Sept.- Oct. makes primo beach time

The old-timers on Cape Cod wax nostalgic about the days way back, before 1965 or so, when the Cape would shut down as a tourist spot after Labor Day.  The “See you next summer” signs would go up, people would heave a sigh of relief and locals would enjoy perhaps the two best months – September and October – all to themselves.

Inevitably the secret got out, the chamber of commerce folks figured there was still a good deal of money to be made, and lo and behold! The shoulder season was born.  Technically, late spring is included in the shoulder season too; but let’s face it:  Indian summer rocks on Cape Cod.

For those who don’t have to flee the peninsula by the end of August and can take the time to explore some otherwise-crowded waterfront, September and October are ideal for some of the area’s most scenic seaside geocaching too.

The “Pirate Island” cache, on a sandy spit in Pleasant Bay, is well worth a quick launch or even a swim across Round Cove.  Or if you’re a guest at the lovely Wequasset Inn in Harwich, you can stroll down the beach to find the treasure.  Cocktails and cache make a mighty fine way to wind down a September day. 

“Sunset at Rock Harbor” in Orleans is always popular in summer, but try it in October – at least the cache by that name, even if you can’t stay for the solar Technicolor show.  No problem about parking and few nongeocaching muggles to look at you funny as you snoop around behind the beach.

The shoulder season offers a gentle transition before the cold, wet, gray days of winter.  Enjoy it while you can – or at least until the next destination highlight on the calendar:  holiday strolls.

Happy trails.

Images, from top:

Sailboats in Round Cove

The Outer Bar: pre-caching cocktails

Horseshoe crab heaven

Round cove

Rock Harbor at low tide, sans crowds

If there?s Talk Like a Pirate Day, it?s high time for International Geocaching Day

The world loves a holiday, even one that’s not ethnic, religious or cultural. Now nerds have their own special chance to partay, with the third Saturday in August being officially designated (by Groundspeak, the folks who run geocaching.com) as International Geocaching Day. Ground zero for this weekend’s celebration was the plaza by Groundspeak’s headquarters in – where else? Seattle. But IGD events were also held from Afghanistan to Wyoming.

While the Cape Cod Cachers were unusually not-with-the-event-schedule on this, Groundspeak encouraged individual geocachers to observe the day by finding a cache and earning an IGD “souvenir” for their geocaching.com profile. 

I celebrated IGD on the Lower Cape with a few new scenic caches to add to the collection.

First, I stopped by an off-the-beaten-path trail with access to Little Pleasant Bay, Pah Wah Point, for a new cache called “Abby’s Paw Print,” placed by a canine-human geonavigating team.  I missed getting first-to-find by an hour or so, but enjoyed the cool walk and the gentle beach by the salt marsh.

My GPS indicated that “I Hate, I Love Micros!” was nearby, so I headed back up the road to another Orleans conservation area with a trail that meandered to the head of the Namequoit River. Quick find – I guess I loved that micro – a quick photo, then off to the next one on the list.

“Jackknife Harbor” was right down on the landing at Pleasant Bay, a most agreeable spot accessible to the public. At least that was where you parked. The cache itself was slightly uphill and through a bit of poison ivy; but that’s what Tecnu skin cleanser is for.

Four new caches were placed last week at the D. Isabel Smith Monomoy River Reservation in Harwich, so that was my next and last stop. The one-and-a-half mile trail covers woods and fields along the river and offers scenic overlooks and benches for sitting quietly and observing wildlife. The caches are progressively more difficult to find, from “DIS I - Easy” to “Harder.” I made it to the second cache, “Medium,” efficiently enough. By the time I got to “Hard,” my geo-sense was waning and I came up empty after a good 20-minute search. I called it a day and retired to celebrate with a Starbucks ice coffee and red velvet mini-whoopie pie on the way home.

Happy first International Geocaching Day, everyone! 

And happy trails.

Images, from top:

Pah Wah Point

Namequoit River

Jackknife Harbor

D. Isabel Smith Monomoy River Reservation

Easy ambiance in East Orleans

For those stuck in traffic crawling along Routes 6A or 28, Orleans can seem like a bottleneck clogging the divide between the Lower and Outer Cape. Drivers slingshotting from Suicide Alley around the Orleans rotary miss most of the town altogether. But just off the busy main roads, a sidestep away from Nauset Beach, lie several coves with public landings that make a fine place to launch a boat, fish, or just sit in the sun. Of course, Trail Hound delights in finding the geocaches hidden in these little gems of shoreline.

“This Beautiful Place” lives up to its name: an exquisite piece of shoreline between Nauset Harbor and Mill Pond. A sandy trail encircles part of the shore, beckoning walkers to the water as well as boaters and fishermen.

Not far away, at the end of Tonset Road, is another landing and geocache, “Down By the Sea.” The site is popular with kayakers.

“Asa’s Landing,” on Gibson Road, is another appealing fishing and boating spot. The multicache hidden there offers a short stroll along the shore – make sure it’s not high tide if you want to find the second stage.

Down toward The River leading to Little Pleasant Bay, there’s a second cache now at Kent’s Point Conservation Area, “Don’t Climb the Bank,” in case you really need another excuse to visit the wooded trails on this breezy point.

The inlets of East Orleans offer cool breezes, a place to sit quietly, get sand between your toes and access to the waterfront – who needs the crowds at the beach?

Happy trails!

Images, from top:

This Beautiful Place

Kayakers at Tonset 

Asa's Landing

Beach Plum

Kent's Point

More finds along the Rail Trail - Old Colony style

Navigating the rotaries of Cape Cod – or traffic circles, as they’re called elsewhere - is one of the quirky charms of traveling on our fair peninsula. Jump into the spin as soon as you cross the Bourne Bridge; or if you’re heading to Hyannis, have a whirl around the West End and airport rotaries. No matter where you enter the vehicular roulette, your circular exit can send you off into intriguing new adventures, whether or not it’s where you intended to go.

What would the Cape Cod Rail Trail be without a rotary to call its own? Granted, the bike trail version is a simple, three-spoke rotary, well marked with signs (unlike some of its automotive counterparts). Most cyclists stick to the main CCRT, the 22-mile route from Dennis to Wellfleet, and pass through the Harwich rotary, just over 3 miles from the Dennis trailhead, like a gentle curve in the road. But the 7.5-mile Old Colony Rail Trail spur, leading through Harwich Center into Chatham, is a worthy diversion.

Stealth Trio, the same crew of geocachers to populate the CCRT with caches, has hidden nine or so geocaches along the Old Colony spur. These caches highlight publicly visible sites, like Chatham airport, as well as hidden ones. One of our favorites was “OCRT: Island Pond,” which brought us down a side dirt path to a small pond hidden from the trail by woodlands. Another cache, “OCRT: Solitude,” offered a pause at the historic Harwich Center Cemetery. While I signed the log after finding the cache, we were treated to music from the Congregational church’s bells.

Now that summer’s here, why rush past the scenery, on or off the trail? The bike trail less traveled can also make all the difference.

Happy trails.

Images, from top:

OCRT Chatham spur

Harwich Cemetery

Island Pond