TUCKAHOE STATE PARK

If you have ever gone to Rehobeth Beach via Route 404, the Seashore Highway, then you have zipped right by Tuckahoe State Park. This sprawling park, bisected by the serpentine Tuckahoe Creek, is located in Queen Anne’s and Caroline Counties on the Eastern Shore and rings all of the recreational bells.

It offers a wide range of outdoor activities: twenty miles of hiking trails, a sixty-acre lake where you can boat and fish, horse trails, picnicking and pavilions, playgrounds, a Challenge Course, disc golf, and camping and cabins.

Fall was in the air as our four man team met by the picnic area at the edge of the shimmering blue Tuckahoe Lake. There was no one on the lake. The only people we saw were a father and his little daughter sitting by the playground, enjoying the enchanting view and the warm midday sun.

In addition to my usual hiking buddies, Jimmy Martin and Rob Schneck, we were being joined by my old boss at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (MDNR), John Wilson, who lives in Kennedyville, just north of Chestertown. John was the top planner for DNR for thirty-three years and when he retired last year and walked out the front door of the Tawes Building in Annapolis, he took the institutional memory of the entire organization with him. Over the years, John had a hand in putting together the management plans for most of our parks, forests, and wildlife areas. He also ran the Maryland Scenic Rivers Program, and was in charge of all Maryland trails. John is a Renaissance Man with a country accent and a joy to be around because he knows the back stories on many of our public lands like Tuckahoe and always speaks his mind.

Our history lesson began as we walked along the east side of the lake.

“So, what kind of fish do they catch here? Perch?” asked Rob, an avid fisherman on the Severn River.

John laughed. “Trout. Sterile rainbow trout. “

We hadn’t seen that one coming.

“But they aren’t native to Maryland are they?” asked Rob.

“Of course not,” replied John with one of his patented chuckles of disdain. “But our fisheries folks figured that it was okay as long as the trout didn’t breed. And who doesn’t want to catch a nice rainbow? I suggested that they just invite fishermen to come to the back of the hatchery truck and they could hand out the fish.”

The plan for the day was to hike about three miles down the Tuckahoe Valley Trail (Blue), cross Tuckahoe Creek, and then take Pee Wee’s Trail (Orange) back to the trailhead where we started. Essentially a 6.5-mile mile loop with the Adkins Arboretum in the middle.

We had downloaded a GPS map of the park onto our phones, using the free Avenza app, and the hike looked fairly straightforward. But we screwed it up right away when we took a well worn path that led from a parking lot along Crouse Mill Road. There were several SUV’s in the lot and we assumed they belonged to other hikers. So, off we went.

Here’s a tip to remember. DNR park trails are marked with colored blazes. So, if you are walking along and there are no blazes on the trees bordering the trail, then you are not on a designated trail.

We soon came to a swamp and the little blue dot on our phones showed that we were close to, but not actually on, the Tuckahoe Valley Trail. Rather than backtrack, we decided to bushwhack due east, assuming — correctly — that we would soon intersect with the Blue Trail. The shoe-sucking swamp and green-brier made us pay for our navigational sins, but we were soon on the right trail and hiking through a thick forest of hardwood trees whose leaves were just beginning to turn. It was yet another lovely October day in the neighborhood.

It didn’t look like the trail received a lot of foot traffic, but it was in great shape and there was no trash, other than the occasional beer can inserted into a tree cavity by some lazy dipshit.

After less than a mile we entered the Adkins Arboretum which bills itself as the “Chesapeake Native Garden”. I’m not sure exactly what that means, but it sure sounds nice.

The trail didn’t change in any way but the show got way more interesting. There were well-maintained footbridges across meandering streams, sturdy benches, a veritable maze of side paths with flowery names, and small informational signs describing the various tree species. Unlike the Schoolhouse Woods Trail at Wye Island where we had hiked the previous week and where each sign showed what each tree’s leaf looked like, every sign at Adkins was adorned with a Poplar leaf. Either they figured no one would notice, or they really like poplars. There were also colorful futuristic interpretive signs to enlighten the way.

The Adkins Arboretum’s story is posted on the homepage of their very snazzy website:

“Adkins Arboretum is the only arboretum or public garden that focuses solely on plants native to the Mid-Atlantic coastal plain. Because of its location on the Delmarva Peninsula, at the junction of the piedmont and the coastal plain where northern and southern plant life overlap, it includes diverse habitats that support more than 600 species of native shrubs, trees, wildflowers, grasses, and ferns. By walking the Arboretum grounds, visitors can experience native plants in a natural setting, as well as in ecological restoration projects and in cultivated gardens. The Arboretum is a model for land stewardship, playing an important role in protecting the health of the Chesapeake Bay by preserving and restoring the native flora of the region.”

https://www.adkinsarboretum.org

In a previous incarnation, I worked with the folks at Adkins on building a rail trail between Tuckahoe and their wooded property and I can tell you that a day spent at Adkins is always enjoyable. In addition to their wooded trails, they also have an outstanding nature center and offer a wide range of entertaining and educational programs for all ages.

The terrain along the valley trail was surprisingly hilly given that we were on the Eastern Shore which is usually pool table flat, and the forest was thick with impressive oak, poplar, and hickory. And while there were some grand old trees, the area had obviously been logged before.

Trees are like flowers or bushes. If you cut one, it will often branch out, creating another tree that sprouts from the original base — where there was one, there are now two. When I worked for the U.S. Forest Service near Grand Canyon, we called them splitters. We saw several poplar splitters along the trail with as many as four trees sprouting up together, resembling a bush, other than the fact that each tree was a foot in diameter.

The changes in elevation gave rise to entirely different ecosystems. Down near the sandy creek the understory was dominated by waist-hgh Paw Paws, growing with wild abandon, their wide green leaves bobbing up and down like hand fans. And at the top of each hill, hollies covered the more loamy ground like a red-berry coat.

As we walked along in silence, Pileated Woodpeckers, RedBellies, and Downies provided the background sound show with their relentless hammering on trees and squeaks of delight, occasionally punctuated by shotgun blasts from somewhere off in the distance.

The only people we saw for the first few hours of our hike were one lone hiker trudging along as if on a mission, his two ski poles digging into the soft dirt to help push him rapidly along, and a young woman on a mountain bike who kept apologizing profusely for making us step aside to let her go past.

At the halfway mark, a little over three miles into our little journey, we came to a big wooden footbridge over Tuckahoe Creek. We stopped to eat some nuts that John graciously shared with the rest of the group, but there was no place to sit down because the rotten logs were probably teeming with chiggers. You can’t see the little suckers, so it’s always wise to avoid rotting wood, rather than find out later that your seat came back to bite you in the ass.

After a short break we started walking along the Pee Wee Trail (Orange) which essentially took us back the way we had come, but on the other side of Tuckahoe Creek along a wooded ridge of stately trees above the meandering creek that looked like a big brown snake from above.

Beech trees suddenly took over and unlike most forests in Maryland that I have visited, only a few of the beeches in Tuckahoe State Park were covered in nonsense graffiti. Maybe it was too far a walk for most people who like to carve mindless drivel onto the smooth grey bark of my favorite tree.

The ridge trail eventually led us along the edge of a sprawling field of dry, tan soybeans, chattering against one another in the breeze. And off in the distance a huge silver grain elevator sat like a top hat on a hill. It was a rather surreal sight after seeing nothing but forest for the past three hours.

At the end of the field there were age-old deer trails leading back into the thick hardwood forest toward the Tuckahoe. Deer aint stupid. A dinner of tasty soybeans followed by a refreshing drink from Tuckahoe Creek would definitely do the trick.

Pee Wee’s Trail is one of the most heavily used horse trails on the Eastern Shore. Horses played a big role in Maryland history and horses are welcome in over half of our state parks — not on every trail — but there’s usually an area where horses are welcome, if possible. The equestrian community contributes to our parks in many ways, and while horses can definitely beat the hell out of a trail, especially if it’s wet, the DNR tries its best to open our public trails to as many users as possible without damaging the resource. It’s a balancing act, for sure.

Tuckahoe is home to a large equestrian center and the park regularly hosts horsey events, like races and rambles. Suffice it to say, we were not at all surprised when two very friendly ladies came toward us on large brown and white horses. One was named Doodle and the other was Gambler. We stepped aside to let them go by and the horses sniffed our packs expectantly for food. Unfortunately, we had eaten all of our treats.

As we climbed out of the muddy creek bottom and up onto a heavily-wooded ridge the late afternoon cathedral light made the twisting Tuckahoe and fallen orange leaves almost sparkle. A Bursting Heart plant covered in red-jewel blossoms bobbed in the breeze like some Oriental candy box. We had entered the magic kingdom. And no one said a word, even when a good-size black snake — our second of the day — went racing across the path.

The spell was eventually broken by the sound of heavy machinery. And soon we came upon a DNR crew of five (three men and two women), clearing a new trail with a bush hog and chainsaws. We stopped to chat a bit and they explained that they were getting the park ready for an upcoming 25K run. And when they finished re-routing the trail so it stayed up on high ground and out of the eroding floodplain, they would move on to another park. They seemed to be having big fun building a new path from scratch in their woodsy park office, and it brought back fond memories of my days working out west on the Kaibab National Forest when the only thing I answered to was the weather.