Gail Rheinheimer
Gail pauses among osage oranges in Wye Island NRMA.
Several trails in the Wye Island Natural Resources Management Area in Queen Anne's County, Maryland. About 5 miles.
As a part of a long-weekend getaway to the eastern shore of Maryland and the town of Easton (with the trip built around a wonderful Friday-night performance by John Gorka and Susan Werner in the equally wonderful Avalon Theater), we undertook a series of easy, flat trails in the Wye Island NRMA. The six trails we walked all either lead to a view of the Wye River just as it empties into the Chesapeake Bay, or circle field planted in corn or what appeared to be soy beans left to dry and be plowed under.
Not much excitement to these flatland meanders save the fact that one hunter was signed in, and so we pretended to be on the lookout for him.
And there is a big holly tree on the Holly Tree Trail. Plus tons of osage orange trees on the Osage Trail and elsewhere in the 2,400-plus acres of the RMA. The Osage Trail has a sort of tunnel under a row of the gnarly, bent-over, dead-looking trees.
As we approached the road on the last trail we walked, a ring-necked pheasant scurried across our path and into the woods, in our lone encounter with wildlife, as the hunters must be managing it well.
Click here for Wye Island NRMA trail info.
November 20, 2009