This weekend I took a day trip down to the Cape Cod National Seashore. It had been years since I had been to the Cape; it existed in my memory as a place hours and hours away with lots of crowded beaches of New Englanders on vacation. A simple google search told me that the furthest point of the Cape, Provincetown, was only a mere 2 1/2 hours away AND that Cape Cod wasn’t all just sandy beaches covered in a patchwork of rainbow beach towels, but that 40 miles of dunes and coastal marshland were protected by the National Park Service! With the White Mountains still covered in snow and ice, I decided to go south for some hiking instead.
Of course going to a narrow peninsula jutting into the stormy Atlantic in April is always a gamble, but the weather wasn’t too bad. The morning was throughly cloudy with plenty of mist, but I was able to enjoy a couple hours of sun in the afternoon. The time of year was certainly an advantage in terms of the crowds. The trails were remarkably quiet and peaceful – on one short loop through a beech forest I didn’t see anyone until I was in site of the parking lot. The windswept beaches were scattered with people walking and thankfully the roads were traffic free! The only place that I really came across a crowd was in the downtown shops of Provincetown. Another perk of exploring during the off season was that I didn’t have to pay to park at any of the beaches, so I was able to see a lot of different areas in only a day – something that wouldn’t be possible during the summer.
I was surprised at how much land is protected by the National Park Service. The Seashore runs along almost the entire Eastern side of the Cape’s arm – from Provincetown all the way down to Chatham. The contrast between the protected undeveloped areas and the rows and rows of holiday cottages, bed and breakfasts, and summer homes lining the Western coast is stark. As one of the most productive marine environments in the world, the waters surrounding Cape Cod are home to a diverse array of life, especially marine mammals, such as the right whale (which was hunted to low numbers until its protection in the 1900s that has led to a slow recovery). While the biodiversity is abundant, the ecological balance is extremely fragile. With a rich human history tied to the land and waters – from the Wampanoag tribe to the pilgrims to modern day fishermen, the rich bounty of resources has been used by the masses. Like many areas of the world the challenge in the coming decades will be to balance resource use and conservation. If we are lucky perhaps the Cape’s namesake, the cod, will again be as abundant in the waters as it once was.
In all, exploring Cape Cod and hiking the trails took me through wild dunes, beech forests, cedar swamps, tidal marshlands, and wide open beaches. It is somewhere that I had never considered hiking, but I was impressed with the National Seashore. None of the trails are long – it’s not like hiking in the White Mountains, and they barely rise above sea level, but the landscape is varied and never being far from the ocean is great. I noticed many more miles of bike trails. This I think, would probably be the best way to actively explore Cape Cod… perhaps another time.
The WORLD discovered 
very interesting info ! .