Cumberland Island part 1

After slogging through the first half of Spring Semester, which involved two snow storms that created lots of disruption and cancelled classes, I finally got a chance to take some time off during Spring Break.  I had wanted to visit Cumberland Island, off the southern end of Georgia’s coast, in March 2013.  However, I discovered that you need to make reservations well ahead of time because there are limitations to how many people are allowed on the island and I was way late coming to the party, so the trip got put on the back burner.  Fast forward to 2014 and I was better prepared with my plans.  I got my reservations in early and everything was set.  The basic plan was to drive down on Monday and camp, then catch the ferry out to the island on Tuesday morning and backpack for three days, return on Thursday afternoon and then drive home Friday.  So here’s my play-by-play, heavy on the photos with some thoughts sprinkled in to provide context.

Monday, 10 Mar 2014- 

As I had hatched this plan, I decided there were some other places I’d also like to see that I could catch along the way.  With the Civic loaded I was out the door early and made my first stop at Ocmulgee National Monument.  This is a site at the confluence of the Walnut Creek and Ocmulgee Rivers, in Macon, GA.  The area was occupied by various Mississippian First Nations tribes for hundreds of years.  During the course of their occupation, they built these:

These are the Greater & Lesser Temple Mounds.  To give you an idea of scale, notice the two people standing on top of the Greater Temple Mound.  There are seven mounds at this site, and there are a number of sites across the Southeast US where mounds exist, but they can also be found as far away as Iowa and Ohio.  And we have no idea why the mounds were built although it is assumed they served a religious purpose.  What is known is that there were wooden structures on top of each mound, and there were villages that consisted of many wooden structures built around the mounds.  Clearly we can see a lot of soil has gone into each mound.  So how did the mounds get built?  By people who had lots of time, determination, and very basic tools- 

One basket-load at a time...

 After Ocmulgee, I continued across the coastal plain of Georgia and made my way to Crooked River State Park, where I camped for the night.

Tuesday, 11 Mar 2014- 

I loaded back up and 8:30 am found me in line to check in for the ferry over to Cumberland Island.  We had a quick orientation, and then everyone loaded onto the ferry for the 45 minute ride down the St Marys River and across Cumberland Sound.  On the way out, I spotted American White Pelicans on both the Florida and Georgia sides of the river, which gave me a new bird for both states!

Leaving St Marys.  The building on the left behind the big cabbage palm is the National Park Service Headquarters for Cumberland Island.

The short story of Cumberland Island goes something like this- during the 1800s, most of the island became the possession of industrial tycoons to serve as their vacation playground, in particular the Carnegie’s although I think the Vanderbilt’s also owned part of the island.  The island stayed in a fairly wild, pristine state during this period.  Going into the 1970s, it came onto the radar of both developers and mining interests (I’m not sure what they would mine here, sand?).  This caused much consternation among both the rich people who still owned most of the land there and environmentalists, but more importantly rich people because they’re the ones who have connections in the right places (i.e. Washington DC).  So a deal was worked out where the island was turned over to the Department of the Interior and it became a National Seashore.  Thus one of the largest and most intact barrier islands along the east coast of the United States became locked away from development and available for anyone to enjoy.  There are still private landowners who have the right to drive on existing roads on the island, but their usage has time limits, usually one or two generations, and eventually the whole island will belong to The People.

After I disembarked from the ferry I had to attend another orientation specifically for campers.  There we were allowed to select where we would camp and got our camping permits, and were given a long list of warnings which were common sense, but obviously some people need to be told and even then they still have to learn the hard way- treat your water before you drink it, tie your food up in a tree and don’t put any food in your tent unless you wish to feed the raccoons all your food and/or have them assist you in the decision to buy a new tent.  If it has teeth, leave it alone whether it is a snake, armadillo, coon, or horse.  The island has a population of wild horses that have been there centuries and apparently stupid people can’t resist getting close to them.  We got to hear lots of stories of people who get goofy when they see a feral horse and have a bad time when they discover the horse just isn’t that big on cuddly-times.

Getting through all that, I loaded up my 27 lbs of food and gear and set off across the island.  As I started to hike, the first thing that really struck me was how tropical the island felt.  In truth, it is subtropical but I understand what the attraction was for the rich people who bought the place up.

The majority of the island is covered by maritime forest, which consists mostly of Southern Live Oaks (similar to but larger than the Texas Live Oaks we have in southern TX) draped with Spanish Moss and an understory of Saw Palmetto.  As I hiked along the Parallel Trail in the late morning, the air was filled with the sounds of songbirds, primarily singing Northern Parulas and Yellow-throated Warblers, along with White-eyed Vireos, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers wheezing and Yellow-rumped Warblers chipping.  Adding to the feeling of being in a tropical place were the epiphytes growing on the trees, specifically a type of fern, wasn’t expecting that!

I sat down for lunch and afterwards decided to cross over to the beach since I was near a dune crossing marker.  The dunes are made of soft sand and very fragile, so there are only a few places where one can cross over to the beach and visitors are expected to adhere to that rule.  As I started to hike north along the beach, I came across this creature:

That’s a horseshoe crab, a good-sized one at that.  They can be found all along eastern US beaches.  They lay untold numbers of eggs, which in turn provide food for migrating shorebirds, so the crabs are a critical component of the food web here.  Here’s a picture of one right-side up that I borrowed off the internet:

That wasn’t the only dead thing to find, I also found a few of these jellies during my travels:

An unescapable feature on the beach were the shells.  All along the high-tide line were deposited shells.  All told there must be millions along the 18 or so miles of Cumberland’s beaches.  Here’s an idea of what it’s like mile after mile:

Fortunately it is perfectly legal to collect shells and take them home with you.  I think it was an admission of pragmatism for the Nat’l Park Svc- people WILL pilfer shells, and rather than have to shake down every person visiting the island, NPS just says its ok and makes life easier for everyone.  Debbie told me she would be loaded down- she loves shells, each one is unique and she would take ALL of them.  I brought a couple home, but here are a few others I left behind:

That’s how mother nature left this one:

 Here's an interesting one covered in barnacles, plus...

You had to be careful, they weren’t always empty!

This one still had what I assume was a hermit crab in it, or it would have come home with me :)

I hiked about three miles down the beach and got to the next dune crossing, where I met a couple who was coming out to the beach.  The woman offered to take my photo- 

So I start to chat with them.  Now, I’ve driven about 330 miles, ridden a boat for 45 minutes, and hiked four hours to one of the most remote beaches on the eastern seaboard, where I meet this couple.  And where do they live?  About ten miles from me.  Granted, there are almost a million of us living in Gwinnett County so I guess the odds do favor we will run into one another.

After that, I hiked back across the dunes and made my way to the Yankee Paradise campsite, where I pitched my tent among the palmettos and hanging moss.

Well-fed campers hang their food, in this case in a blue waterproof bag.

Supper consisted of a couscous, dried mango and a granola bar.  Couscous is a great backpacking food.  A half-cup requires about 6 oz of boiling water, let it sit for five minutes and you're ready to eat.  Except when you forget to add any spices to it, like I did.  Then it just tastes like wet cardboard.  I'm not sure what was worse- eating it the first night or knowing I had to eat the same thing the next night...
Afterwards I made the one mile hike over to the Plum Orchard mansion.  The real benefit here is that the water is filtered and does not have to be treated.  If I am not mistaken this house was built by one of the Carnegie’s. 

The house is just massive.  The windows on the bottom floor on either side of the front door have to be 8 1/2 feet high.  The house is open from 9 to 4 where a volunteer can show you around the inside, but I was there too late on both my visits.  A view of the end of the house:

All of the houses are built on the west side of the island, facing the salt marshes and Cumberland Sound.  I’m not sure why this is- more breeze to keep it cool, better protected from storms coming off the Atlantic?  I don’t know.  I was able to sit on the dock and watch the sun set over the salt marsh.  Cloud cover was starting to roll in and various flocks of herons and shorebirds would fly by from time to time.  There was a tension I was not aware existed until one Clapper Rail sounded off and broke some agreement, because suddenly four or five other Clappers responded all at once and then things settled back down.

As it got too dark to see, I flicked on my head lamp and headed back to camp, finishing a total of 12 miles hiked for the day.   Those clouds got thicker and thicker, but I knew the weather forecast, so I wasn’t surprised when sometime around midnight it started to pitter-patter, then rain, then pour.  But my tent held up well and I stayed dry.  By the way, if you get enough trees dripping on palmettos, it sounds just like rain when in fact it stopped raining some time back!

Continued in Part 2...