Today I’m recapping a short (2 mile) perimeter walk at Myrtle Point Park, in southern Maryland, highlighting some later summer/fall flora and calm river views. Late summer has been great for getting outdoors in the mid-Atlantic. Even before Labor Day, the temps were cool and the air was dry. We’ve seen a few days back up into the mid-80’s in September, with some lingering humidity, but by and large we’ve had an early fall, and some trees are starting to indicate they feel it too.

Myrtle Point Park is a small peninsula in St. Mary’s County, MD, extending out eastward into the Patuxent River. Many years ago (20?) the county announced plans to turn Myrtle Point into a collection of soccer and baseball fields, but the locals argued, successfully, as it turns out, that Myrtle Point deserved to be a natural site. Like many small parks, Myrtle is re-wilded from old farmland and settlements, and up until recently there were dilapidated barns still lingering deep in the woods. Today, its trails criss-cross the peninsula and range from wide gas-line cuts to single-track woodland paths. Our favorite is a perimeter hike that leads along Mill Creek (a popular overnight anchorage) to the west and the Patuxent River to the north and east.

Though the weather has generally been beautiful, the air was almost absolutely still once you got away from the water. That meant that the last of the summer’s mosquitoes were enjoying a buffet with all of the hikers, ourselves included. That just meant we had to keep moving.

Our route was clockwise – Mill Creek Lane, Deep Woods Trail, Kingfisher Trail, Berry Lane, Wet Sox Trail.

Goldenrod and black-eyed susan are still blooming around southern Maryland, filling fields with yellow flowers. We found some more obscure blooms.

There were also some interesting fungi about.

Shoreline trails are always being undercut. Between rising waters bringing higher tides, and an increasing number of storms (tropical and Nor’-Easters), the small cliffs surrounding the point are eroding away as the trees holding the land together fall into the river. We learned (the hard way) that Wet Sox Trail is essentially gone, over-run by high tides and increasing water intrusion. By the time we got there, we were still able to semi-bushwhack through the phragmites and use careful timing between small waves to stay relatively dry, but I think we’re going to have to consider Wet Sox to be “retired”.

There are several places where currents have deposited sandbars across various coves, creating small isolated ponds. The salinity in these ponds is different, typically lower, than the brackish river water, but occasionally the river will overflow the sandy barriers and mix with the relatively fresh water beyond. It’s a changing environment.

A strange guardian sits within a tree hollow at a trail intersection.

All in all – mosquitoes and flooded trail notwithstanding – Myrtle Point offered a great excuse to get out and stretch our legs, and see what nature was doing in its run-up to proper Autumn. I hope you get an excuse to check out your local parks as well.

Get Out There