Stan
Well-known member
Enjoyed four days hiking, biking and paddling early in January '12 on Georgia's southern most barrier island. Most of the island is now a National Seashore, including some wilderness. http://www.nps.gov/cuis/index.htm
The island is rich in wildlife from alligators and armadillos to wild horses and pigs. Rattlers are occasionally spotted. Horses are descendants of stock left initially by early Spanish explorers, then the British followed by the Confederacy and finally the wishes of a landowner who bequeathed her horses their freedom upon her death.
Sea birds flock here, both migratory and permanent. Highlights of my visit included oyster catchers, ibis, white egrets, various herons, sandhill cranes, pelicans and abundant turkey vultures.
20 miles of pristine Atlantic beach are untouched. With no reclamation projects, the condition of the tidal sand is ripe for organisms that start the food chain. This is the western most part of the east coast, thus furthest away from the Gulf Stream and the typical paths of hurricanes (it surprised me to realize that due north is ... Ohio). Ecaping the erosion of these major storms has enhanced the beauty of the beach.
The island is a microcosm of American history from primitive residents, early French and Spanish explorers, strategic Revolutionary War encampments, plantations and slavery and freedom, ownership and stewardship by two wealthy families and eventual deeding to the park service after bitter battles to resist titanium mining and real estate development.
The island is nearly 20 miles long and varies from 1-4 miles across. There is a gravel road the length of the island, "grand avenue", and a few cross island roads as well as several trails. This makes for a variety in hiking and biking options and loops but if you wish to bike on the beach, where the hard tidal sand is a pleasure to ride, bring your own bike because the bikes available at the Park Service are not permitted on the beach.
The Park Service maintains a campground and remote campsites. There is a small inn on the island, Greyfield, which does allow some of its bikes on the beach. http://greyfieldinn.com/
Biking on grand avenue takes you through an arched paradise of live oaks garnished with resurrection ferns, cabbage palms, royal palms and saw palmetto. The Park Service grades the roads with dredging from the channel to a Navy base across Cumberland Sound; this material often contains fossils. On occasion you'll experience the excitement of meeting up with a wild horse ... don't bother them and they don't bother you, otherwise they can be dangerous. My passings on such occasions have been without incident but it is always a thrill.
No visitor to Cumberland should miss two sites at opposite ends of the island. Dungeness, at the southern end is less than two miles from the Park Service dock. It is the ruins of a bygone era, with standing buildings and ruins of outbuildings of various sizes and function. The last mansion was built on the site of a home occupied by General Nathaniel Greene and burned in the '50's. The ruins are stabilized and stand as a backdrop to a magnficent lawn and gardens, now gone wild and graced by the maintence of wild horses. I was fortunate to witness the dynamics of a stallion tending his harem; one recalcitrant mare wished to linger longer at the lawn and it took a bite in the ass to get her moving ... ohhh, if it were only that easy.
The other site is a small Baptist Church built by slaves freed after the Civil War. It is part of a village, where some buildings still remain, erected from lumber salvaged from slave quarters appurtenant to Stafford Plantation. The late President Kennedy's son John was married at this little church in a very private and secret event orchestrated around the aforementioned Greyfield.
Guided tours of both of these sites, and many others with a more naturalist bent, are conducted regularly by both the Park Service and Greyfield.
I paddled a bit in Cumberland Sound which includes the intracoastal waterway but for the most part I stayed in the shelter of the salt marshes, especially when I rounded one marsh island into a 25 knot headwind and choppy whitecaps ... hated to do a hasty retreat to calmer waters when I spotted dolphin, including the spout from one blowhole, but figured I'd soon be in the drink with them if I didn't.
Water temps I estimate were in the high 50's, low 60's and the air was in the 60's. The tide was with me in both directions, for a change, but the ebb against that wind was challenging in open waters.
Can't say I missed snow at all during our visit to Cumberland Island and points south ... after all, there was none back home and I had plenty last summer out west!
The island is rich in wildlife from alligators and armadillos to wild horses and pigs. Rattlers are occasionally spotted. Horses are descendants of stock left initially by early Spanish explorers, then the British followed by the Confederacy and finally the wishes of a landowner who bequeathed her horses their freedom upon her death.
Sea birds flock here, both migratory and permanent. Highlights of my visit included oyster catchers, ibis, white egrets, various herons, sandhill cranes, pelicans and abundant turkey vultures.
20 miles of pristine Atlantic beach are untouched. With no reclamation projects, the condition of the tidal sand is ripe for organisms that start the food chain. This is the western most part of the east coast, thus furthest away from the Gulf Stream and the typical paths of hurricanes (it surprised me to realize that due north is ... Ohio). Ecaping the erosion of these major storms has enhanced the beauty of the beach.
The island is a microcosm of American history from primitive residents, early French and Spanish explorers, strategic Revolutionary War encampments, plantations and slavery and freedom, ownership and stewardship by two wealthy families and eventual deeding to the park service after bitter battles to resist titanium mining and real estate development.
The island is nearly 20 miles long and varies from 1-4 miles across. There is a gravel road the length of the island, "grand avenue", and a few cross island roads as well as several trails. This makes for a variety in hiking and biking options and loops but if you wish to bike on the beach, where the hard tidal sand is a pleasure to ride, bring your own bike because the bikes available at the Park Service are not permitted on the beach.
The Park Service maintains a campground and remote campsites. There is a small inn on the island, Greyfield, which does allow some of its bikes on the beach. http://greyfieldinn.com/
Biking on grand avenue takes you through an arched paradise of live oaks garnished with resurrection ferns, cabbage palms, royal palms and saw palmetto. The Park Service grades the roads with dredging from the channel to a Navy base across Cumberland Sound; this material often contains fossils. On occasion you'll experience the excitement of meeting up with a wild horse ... don't bother them and they don't bother you, otherwise they can be dangerous. My passings on such occasions have been without incident but it is always a thrill.
No visitor to Cumberland should miss two sites at opposite ends of the island. Dungeness, at the southern end is less than two miles from the Park Service dock. It is the ruins of a bygone era, with standing buildings and ruins of outbuildings of various sizes and function. The last mansion was built on the site of a home occupied by General Nathaniel Greene and burned in the '50's. The ruins are stabilized and stand as a backdrop to a magnficent lawn and gardens, now gone wild and graced by the maintence of wild horses. I was fortunate to witness the dynamics of a stallion tending his harem; one recalcitrant mare wished to linger longer at the lawn and it took a bite in the ass to get her moving ... ohhh, if it were only that easy.
The other site is a small Baptist Church built by slaves freed after the Civil War. It is part of a village, where some buildings still remain, erected from lumber salvaged from slave quarters appurtenant to Stafford Plantation. The late President Kennedy's son John was married at this little church in a very private and secret event orchestrated around the aforementioned Greyfield.
Guided tours of both of these sites, and many others with a more naturalist bent, are conducted regularly by both the Park Service and Greyfield.
I paddled a bit in Cumberland Sound which includes the intracoastal waterway but for the most part I stayed in the shelter of the salt marshes, especially when I rounded one marsh island into a 25 knot headwind and choppy whitecaps ... hated to do a hasty retreat to calmer waters when I spotted dolphin, including the spout from one blowhole, but figured I'd soon be in the drink with them if I didn't.
Water temps I estimate were in the high 50's, low 60's and the air was in the 60's. The tide was with me in both directions, for a change, but the ebb against that wind was challenging in open waters.
Can't say I missed snow at all during our visit to Cumberland Island and points south ... after all, there was none back home and I had plenty last summer out west!
