Hikes to take at Jones Beach West End 2, Orient Point, Garvies Point and more
Nassau County Parks' Garvies Point Museum and Preserve in Glen Cove features hiking trails and scenic views. Credit: Newsday/David Trotman-Wilkins
You’ve hiked Long Island from shore to shore, through woods and marshlands and meadows, and to The End at Montauk Point. Now how about a hike to the ends of the Long Island earth?
Once you’ve gone the distance on remote, less-traveled paths like those at Jones Beach West End 2 and Orient Point and Sag Harbor at the other end of Long Island, that’s it. There is no more to explore.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to four destinations that at least feel like the edge of the known world, with distances approximated on foot with help from the Footpath Route Planner app.
Jones Beach State Park West End 2
150 Bay Pkwy., Wantagh; 516-809-8222, jonesbeachenc.org
Scenes of the Jones Beach West End trail walk, a stretch that can be explored on a fall day. Credit: Jim Merritt
Total distance: 2 miles. An easy to moderate loop runs mostly on sand with a possibility of marshy sections through the dunes area. Not wheelchair accessible.
Getting there: Take Bay Parkway to the end and follow the curve in the road to the parking field.
A century ago, the West End 2 area was an "open ocean," but nature and humans gradually extended the 17-mile barrier island to its current footprint, according to Mia Ramirez, educator at the Jones Beach Energy and Nature Center in Wantagh.
The end of the 6.5-mile beach is quiet and often deserted, especially during the offseason. "It’s the closest you can get to being on the moon while being only a half-hour from the house," Michael Diaz, of Massapequa, a surfcaster, says before hitting the beach trail.
More info: Open sunrise to sunset. Free parking.
0.4 miles: Trail through the dunes
The main trail to this lonely strand begins at the southwest corner of the West End 2 parking field. You’ll be immersed in a dune ecosystem where bayberry bushes and seaside goldenrods flourish, marsh hawks and ospreys fly overhead and a toad was seen hopping by on a recent hike. Turn right at the fork. The wind-swept beach will peek through the dunes as the trail opens on a 360-degree panorama of wild Long Island.
Walk 0.6 miles: The jetty
Crashing surf serenades you west to the jetty. Avoid walking on the slippery rocks jutting into the Atlantic, but point your field glasses seaward from the beach for humpback whale and cargo ship sightings.
Walk 0.6 miles: Jones Inlet
Walk north beside the rock wall paralleling Jones Inlet, a major navigation route and surfcasting destination known for striped bass and solitude. On a recent day, surfcasters described the beach as a peaceful and serene spot to try their luck with rod and reel. (Fishing regulations: dec.ny.gov) Across the Inlet, look for Point Lookout and, on a clear day, the Manhattan skyline and One World Trade Center.
Walk 0.4 miles: The end
Turn right at the break in the dunes marked by sand fencing, and follow the trail back to the parking lot.
Orient Point County Park
41425 NY-25, Orient; 631-852-3232, suffolkcountyny.gov
A man fishes off a sandbar with Orient Point Light in the background, and Plum Island in the distance, a view seen from the trail in Orient Point County Park in Orient. Credit: Newsday/Rebecca Cooney
Total distance: About 1 mile. An easy route follows a dirt path through woods, a grass trail along the beach, packed gravel in the parking lot and some rocks at the point. Not wheelchair accessible.
Getting there: Take Route 25 East to the end. Turn left at the break in the trees across from the ferry entrance and park in the small dirt lot.
The North Fork’s glorious scenery climaxes here in a spectacular Long Island Sound seascape. "You just walk and enjoy nature … without any disturbances from the outside world," East Hampton artist Ewa Banas says of her hikes here for creative inspiration.
More info: Open 8 a.m. to dusk. Free parking.
0.25 miles: Into the woods
The trailhead enters a fairy tale woods full of birdsong, wildlife and native plants. Forge ahead for breathtaking scenery.
0.52 miles: Long Island Sound
Choose from two byways paralleling this pristine stretch of Long Island Sound: a well-maintained grass trail on the bluff, or a white stone beach, where you can picnic under an endless sky while watching cormorants dive for a fish dinner.
0.14 miles: The end
The trail ends as Orient Point narrows to a strip of land a few hundred feet wide. It’s mostly a parking lot with a million-dollar view, where anglers surfcast off the rocks and beach. (Fishing regulations: suffolkcountyny.gov) Local anglers say there are days when seals outnumber human visitors. Walk around the fenced-in area marked "Cable Crossing," for a lands-end view of Plum Gut. Beyond, hikers can see the Orient Point "Coffee Pot" Lighthouse and the mysterious Plum Island.
Elizabeth A. Morton National Wildlife Refuge
2595 Noyac Rd., Sag Harbor; 631-286-0485, fws.gov
A couple walks on the trail through the woods of Elizabeth A. Morton National Wildlife Refuge in Sag Harbor. Credit: Michael E. Ach
Total distance: About 4 miles. Take a round-trip hike to the tip of the Jessup’s Neck peninsula or a self-guided Wild Birds Nature Trail loop.
The Elizabeth A. Morton National Wildlife Refuge can make hikers feel like they’ve gone off the Hamptons map. It’s a wildlife wonderland just a few miles from the nightlife of the East End. The refuge encompasses "pretty much every coastal habitat" including maritime forests, tidal wetlands, ponds, beaches and lagoons within its 187 acres, park ranger Ann Marie Chapman says. "Depending on how late it is in the year, I’ve heard loons calling in the bay," Chapman says. Trailheads are located near the refuge entrance fee station and public restrooms.
Getting there: From Route 27, turn north onto Sandy Hollow Road in Tuckahoe, turn left onto North Sea Road and then right onto Noyac Road. Follow Noyac Road to the refuge entrance.
More info: The refuge is open from ½ hour before sunrise until ½ hour after sunset; $4 parking fee, $2 pedestrian/bike fee.
1.2 miles: Wild Birds Nature Trail
A must for bird watchers, this trail loops over relatively flat terrain, crossing through milkweed meadows and woods and over bridges spanning tidal creeks. About midway through the loop, an observation deck overlooks a scenic freshwater pond. Bring binoculars to spot songbirds and monarch butterflies on their annual fall migrations.
0.27 miles: Beach Trail
You’re bound for the beachfront on Little Peconic Bay, where Chapman says hikers often find large whelk sea snail shells and spot (and report to wildlife authorities) cold-stunned sea turtles. When you reach the entrance to the beach, be sure to use the free scope on the recently constructed elevated platform for a 360-degree panorama of Jessup’s Neck, the bay and tidal flats, Chapman says.
2 miles round trip: Jessup’s Neck
The tip of Jessup’s Neck, the peninsula that separates Little Peconic Bay and Noyack Bay and comprises most of the refuge, is closed from April to August during bird nesting season. But it reopens in the fall for that hiker’s end-of-the-earth vibe.
The end of this trail can be breathtaking. "When you are walking out to the end of the peninsula, you are walking at the foot of 50-foot bluffs for a sweeping panorama of the North Fork and surrounding bays," Chapman says.
Although you’re just midway through your hike, looking at that dramatic seascape, Chapman says, "It’s kind of like you’ve reached the edge of the world. It’s a window into what the area looked like since time immemorial."
Garvies Point Museum and Preserve
50 Barry Dr., Glen Cove; 516-571-8010, garviespointmuseum.com
Nassau County Parks' Garvies Point Museum and Preserve in Glen Cove features hiking trails. Credit: Newsday/David Trotman-Wilkins
The Garvies Point Museum and Preserve opened in the late 1960s on land where the Matinecock tribe sheltered millennia ago, and the Scottish immigrant Garvie family settled in the early 1800s. But a much older story draws scouts, field trips and hikers to its dawn-of-time evoking beach.
Total distance: It’s about a half mile to the beach over easy, tree-shaded terrain, on dirt paths with added wood chips. In another area of the preserve, a loop trail for the visually impaired is equipped with a guide rope and Braille signage.
More info The preserve is open daily, dawn to dusk. Free parking.
0.16 miles: A new beach route
To get to the beach, also known as the Shoreline Trail, take one of the two paths that begin behind the museum. If you choose the left fork, turn right at the bluffs and head north. The path eventually merges with the Old Woods Trail for the remainder of your northward walk.
0.23 miles: Lunch and a landmark
At the end of the Old Woods Trail, turn right to a deck overlooking Pioneer Pond, which is fed by a natural spring. Picnic on the deck to a chorus of bullfrogs, before resuming your walk to the beach.
0.01 miles: Cretaceous Park
Take a sharp left, walk a few steps and you’re walking a beach that’s also a geologic time machine.
0.35 miles: Shoreline Trail
As you walk south on this trail along the Hempstead Harbor beachfront, observe the clay cliffs above to your left. They are one of the few places where the rock formed under Long Island 70 million years ago during the Cretaceous period can be seen. Those hulking boulders strewed in your path? They were carried by glaciers to Long Island at the end of the last ice age, about 20,000 years ago.
The beach gravel under your feet also contains a science lesson: plant fossils with fragments of Earth's oldest flowering trees.
"A few years ago I was just walking the beach, and I looked down and there was this big chunk of red shale imprinted with a magnolia leaf fossil, which dates to 65 million years ago," says Veronica Natale, museum director.
If you find a fossil, bring it to the museum, Natale says. Cretaceous period plant fossils are among the artifacts in the museum’s exhibits on geology and Native American archaeology and culture. (The museum is open Tuesday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; $5, $3 ages 5 to 12.)
