We discovered the AllTrails app and have found some really cool hikes at Nickerson State Park in Brewster. We took the West Heartbreak Loop a couple of days ago and really enjoyed it. The map of the hike is at the end of the blog.
The hike was a loop through the beautiful pine forests. What amazed me was the amount of Bearberry groundcover that was growing on the floor of the forest (you can see that in the first photo) and the vast number of new pine trees growing throughout the forest.
If you haven’t hiked Nickerson State Park, put it on your list, especially on the off-season when the trails are easy to maneuver and you don’t have to worry about Poison Ivy and insects.
Phil and I were taking a hike at the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary a couple of days ago when I saw a hawk right on the trail. He had just caught something and was dragging it onto the trail. By the time I got my camera out, he had seen us and flew away. We waited a bit but he didn’t come down from the tree, so we walked by and saw a very large bunny on the trail.
On the way back we noticed that the bunny was no longer where it had been. There was the hawk, dragging the bunny down the trail. He kept trying to get it up in the air but to no avail. He couldn’t lift it.
The hawk finally was able to drag the bunny off the trail into the woods. We were quite a ways away but we were able to get some really cool photographs of this beautiful Cooper’s Hawk protecting its prey.
It was a perfect day to take a hike on the Atlantic White Cedar Swamp Trail as it was windy and the trail is a bit secluded. When we got to the boardwalk over the swamp, the moss and the reflections looked almost mystical.
It looked so cool, especially for the middle of winter. What do you think?
There are still a lot of red berries on the bushes and shrubs here on Cape Cod that you can see along the roads and trails while hiking. I saw these on the hike from Doane Rock to Coast Guard Beach. There were quite a few in some very tall bushes. I guess the birds have not eaten them all yet.
I thought these were so pretty, especially during the holiday season. What do you think?
The light was so beautiful on the carvings at Indian Rock at Fort Hill the other day. It almost looks like dusk, but it was in the middle of the afternoon.
Indian Rock was a “community grinding rock, one of four such rocks found in the Nauset area. The Indians used the abrasive qualities of the fine-grained metamorphic rock to grind and polish implements made of stone and animal bones, such as stone axes or bone fishhooks.
Indian Rock was originally located in the mud of the marsh below where it now sits on Skiff Hill. The National Park Service moved the 20-ton boulder to this site in 1965.”
(I posted the 2nd photograph with my mitten on it so you can see the huge size of this rock. It was also a completely different day as you can see by the different lighting.)
What history!
Cape Cod daily articles on the wonderful Cape Cod places to hike, experience and photograph. A Cape Cod Outdoor Adventure Series.
