WYE ISLAND NRMA

The Wye Island Natural Resources Management Area is located on the Eastern Shore about an hour from Annapolis.  It looks like a park with its trails, interpretive signs, beaches, paddle boat launches, and picnic tables, but technically, it’s not a state park.  

According to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources website:

“Of Wye Island’s 2,800 acres, 2,450 are managed by the Maryland Park Service for resource management, recreation and agriculture.  A major emphasis at Wye Island is providing suitable habitat for wintering waterfowl populations and other native wildlife. A primary resource management objective at Wye Island is the stabilization of the 30 miles of ever-eroding shoreline.  These efforts are accomplished through a partnership between the department and numerous environmental advocacy groups, such as the Chesapeake Bay Trust, schools and scout groups.”

Essentially the property is managed for wildlife and agriculture — meaning blast the deer and bring on the geese.  It’s mostly leased farm fields comprised of corn and soybeans surrounded by one of the state’s most incredible old growth forests, with a few lovely beaches thrown in along the edges for good measure.

An old growth forest is a woodland at least 200 years old that has never been logged.   There aren’t many left in Maryland, and most are out in the western part of the state.

The Wye Island forest is like stepping back in time.  And it’s humbling to think the now lofty trees on the island were tiny seedlings when the infant nation of America was just being born in 1776.

This would be our first hike of Fall and Jimmy Martin and I were being joined by my old childhood friend Rob Schneck, a retired postman from Annapolis who really knows his trees and birds.

Our first trail of the day was the Ferry Point Landing Trail (White).   And, as usual, there wasn’t another soul in sight. The only people we would see the whole day were an older couple who had found the place by accident and were walking their two dogs. We didn’t even see anyone working there.

Twisted and mangled Osage Orange trees formed a shady lane, their mini brain balls littering the ground like neon green flowers.  The tree gets its name from the color of its orange under-bark, not it’s distinctive fruit known as hedge apples.

The tunnel-like trail ultimately led us to the Wye River where there was an empty white sand beach overlooking expansive McMansions on the far shore, all sitting atop manicured grass benches with their white stone bulkheads preventing the river from washing them away.  

On our side of the river, shoreline erosion and undercutting of the sandy riverbanks was proof positive that the Boy Scouts and environmental groups were fighting a losing battle.  Wye Island is slowly but surely returning to the sea.

The only sounds came from several commercial crabbers in their graceful white Deadrise work boats, plying the lazy river in search of the world famous Wye Island blue crabs — supposedly the sweetest and meatiest on the Chesapeake Bay.

As soon as we moved away from the water the trail virtually vanished and green-brier and fallen black locust and walnut trees obscured the path before we finally stumbled — bloodied but unbowed — onto the Jack-in-the Pulpit Trail that led us back to the trailhead.  We had walked two miles and were totally jazzed.

About a mile back up the washboard gravel Wye Island Road we took the 1.2-mile Osage Orange Trail (Orange).

We wondered how the trail could have more Osage trees than the first two trails we had just walked but as we strolled along the edge of a field of five-foot-tall feed corn with its long, thin cobs of hard red and yellow kernels, its dried-out stalks rustling in the breeze like tan crickets, we saw an endless forest of gnarled and broken-bent Osage trees. The ground was literally covered with their softball-sized fruit and not a single one looked like it had been eaten. Apparently, nothing likes to chow down on the ripe fruit balls. Someone should try and come up with some use for these odd curiosities.

The silence was almost overpowering in its whispering relief; so much different than the urban world of sirens and engines back on the Western Shore where we live.   

Rob remarked, “All the birds are gone.  They’ve headed south — the peewees, wood thrushes, and osprey — they’re but a summer memory.  Soon it’ll just be little black juncos and old man Winter will be here until April when the warblers start migrating through.”

Next up was the Holly Tree Trail (Green) which is home to a 275-year-old holly tree.  The ginormous grey, elephant bark tree is almost hollow in the middle but suckers at it base will ensure that its legacy lives on when the old bull finally gives up the ghost.  

The mystery of the ancient tree was how it had gotten there. It was the only holly tree in the area.  Did someone plant it there way back in 1740? And why?

After about another mile we joined the School House Woods Trail (Blue) at the edge of Grapevine Cove.

I have walked many trails in Maryland but this obscure little trail in Queen Anne’s County was one of the best I have ever seen.  It meandered through an old growth forest like no other.

According to one of the many interpretive signs that described each species of tree, we were hiking through one of the largest old growth remnant forests on the Eastern Shore.

What made it so cool was not just the incredible variety of gigantic, two hundred-year-old hardwood trees, but the fact that they were naturally separated from one another in blocks, as if planted like exhibits.  It was like walking through individual forest rooms in an outdoor museum, each dominated by a specific type of tree. And as we entered each room there was a wooden post with a little sign explaining the characteristics and commercial uses for that particular type of tree.

The Beech Room featured huge Beech trees, their smooth grey bark covered in dated graffiti and pledges of eternal love. Almost every tree in the grove had been carved upon, like guest books in a visitor center.

A few hundred feet later we entered the Poplar Room where majestic, straight-as-a-board Tulip Poplars climbed into the sky like limbless leafy towers.   All around the base of each tree the ground was carpeted in their distinctive green, fan-shaped leaves.

The White Oak Room left us standing there craning our necks skyward and marveling at the massive branches that were bigger than most trees.  A 100-foot-tall White Oak is like a hotel where over 200 species of animals, insects and birds reside together.

Then we walked into the Pine Room where 4-feet diameter Loblolly Pines stood like straight brown sentinels, their plated bark shining in the dappled sunlight.  Interestingly, one of the meanings for loblolly is “mud puddle”, because that’s where they often grow.

Next up was the Sweet Gum Room, where three-feet-diameter behemoths were crowned by the star shaped leaves, now turning a golden yellow. And the ground around each tree was littered with their brown, ping-pong ball size, pointy fruit that resembled little land mines.  

Then came the Northern Red Oak Room where the grandest and most enormous trees In the forest held court.   Some were so big that the three of us could not wrap our arms around them.

And last but not least was the aromatic Sassafras Room.  There’s something about the scent of a Sassafras that always reminds me of my childhood. They rarely get very big but they pack a fragrant punch.

Never in my life have I seen such a breathtaking and unique variety of truly splendid trees.

Near the end of our hike through the old-world forest we came upon a wondrous sight.  A beech tree and sweet gum tree had sprouted up together, and over time they had grown into one another.  When the wind blew, they rubbed against each other, creating a groove in the bark of the gum where the beech’s branches were nestled like a nest.  The two trees were now intertwined as if dancing while growing together as one. They were a lovely symbol of resilience and cooperation for life in these troubled times.

The biggest takeaway from our enchanting day at Wye Island was how incredibly dry everything was.  While summer was kind to us, bringing rain every few days like clockwork, we had the driest September EVER.  

Normally, it should rain nine days out of thirty in September, and we should get about five inches of rain.  In 2019, it rained only two days and the total rainfall amount was 0.7 of an inch. That’s way beyond a drought, but nobody has seemed to even notice.  The farmers were blessed with steady summer rains and they harvested their crops in time. The groundwater was continually replenished. So it’s all good — unless, of course, you are a wild animal or plant — and then you’re pretty much screwed.

Wye Island is like no other public land in Maryland.  And, yes, each of our state parks are unique in their own special way. But if you want to see what Maryland looked like before man started mucking about, you should take a day to visit this treasure island of delight on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay.