Dan's Papers - May 16, 2008 - Take a hike with Ken Kindler

Every first Thursday of the month, the Southampton Trails Preservation Society has a meeting in the basement of Southampton Town Hall. The meeting is open to the public; I attend because I'm the Chair of the Communications Committee. During our May meeting, I asked Ken Bieger, Trail Maintenance Chair, and Tony Garro, VP Hike Planning and Scheduling, if they could facilitate a meeting to discuss what route the Paumanok Path (PP) would travel between Red Creek Park, Hampton Bays and Big Fresh Pond, North Sea. I knew it would be mostly road walking, because there is little undeveloped land on either side of the canal. To write this article I needed some help. I was invited to an informal meeting at the Long Pond Greenbelt Nature Center, located at 1061 Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike, just north of the Scuttlehole Road/Turnpike intersection, Friday May 9. We examined several alternative routes for making this 130-mile trail contiguous. Garro and Bieger were there, and so were Eric Woodward and Laura Smith. Woodward, an architect, works with the STPS trail crew often. He updated the Barrel Hill hike in the Path-o-Pedia, (litlc.org). Woodward has a talent for using GPS, maps, and computers. Smith is the Principal Environmental Analyst with the Town of the Southampton Community Preservation Division. Her responsibilities include compliance, education, public outreach, invasive eradication, and trails planning on CPF purchased properties. With Smith's vision and the talented ad-hoc mapping team, the small links of open space, easements, and roads were knitted together in several different ways. I'll give a general description of what seemed to me to be the most promising potential route. One phrase that I heard repeatedly was, "well if we can't get through here, we can always go..." The point always being, we will finish this grand regional initiative; we just may have to go north, west and south to eventually get east.

I was wrong in the assumption I made in the last article, that we would try to bring the PP out onto Red Creek Road as close to Newtown Road as possible. Southampton Town purchased the Girl Scout Camp (Camp Tekawitha) on Red Creek Road, with Community Preservation Fund dollars. The trail on this property will be an important link in the Paumanok Path. It will have restrooms, and carefully supervised camping; two things that will make the PP a more credible long distance trail. The trail heads northwest to go east, enabling the hiker to remain in the woods a little longer. This will allow the hiker to experience several extraordinary views of Squires Pond along two quiet residential streets. Then the PP turns onto fast-moving Red Creek Road a bit further east. From here, it's a 2-mile road walk on Red Creek and then Newtown Road, under Sunrise Highway to the one-way street along the Shinnecock Canal. Here the pedestrian walkway on Montauk Highway takes you over the canal. East of Newtown Road and north of Montauk Highway is the Shinnecock Canal Maritime Heritage Center. The Town purchased this three-acre site at the historic Shinnecock Canal in 2001 through the Community Preservation Fund. The property includes a Maritime Museum, Visitors' Center, and park facilities.

After crossing the canal, I wound my way through almost 3 miles of residential streets, and then arrived at the Shinnecock Preserve, a grassland habitat managed by the Nature Conservancy. I walked the part of the preserve trail that runs parallel to CR 39 for a half mile. Then I crossed the Highway at Tuckahoe Road. Someday homes along the Paumanok Path's route will be sought after by long distance runners, or people who just enjoy being connected to a trail that visits coastal plain ponds, pygmy pines, beech and white pine woods, maritime heath, and inner woods, fresh and brackish wetland, ocean, and sound.

It was another two-mile walk up Tuckahoe Road, to Barker Island Road, to Whites Lane. From the middle of Whites Lane, I cut into Tuckahoe Swamp and headed north where I intersected a trail marked with black owl blazes. I followed this trail almost a mile to Millstone Brook Road. A short walk up the road and I was at the Nature Conservancy's Big Woods Preserve. I estimate that I traveled 9 miles and only 2 of the miles were off-road. If you are determined to walk the entire trail, this will be a bitter pill to swallow. If you want an enjoyable visit with nature, you will probably skip this section of the Path.