The term “Old Cape Cod” is a famous one – but as far as peninsula’s
go, it’s actually kind of new. This landscape, built on sand and summer memories, is merely a bit of leftover debris from the last ice age some 16-20 thousand
years ago. It’s here to enjoy today, but it won’t be around forever. As the landscape
shifts and fluctuates, battered by wind and sea, homes will be lost and maps
will be re-drawn. The greatest change in the landscape over the last few
decades has been along Nauset, where a new inlet was created in 1987 during a
Nor’easter and again a little farther north after a storm in
2007. Homes that were thought to be safe and secure are long gone. But it's been happening for centuries - this little group of
historical cottages, called the Sand City Camps (seen below) were lost to the sea decades ago.
More recently, a beach community called the
North Beach Chatham Cottages has been eroding since the 1987 storm and is down to is down to 4 remaining structures.
This photograph shows the inevitable...
And what follows...
Although Cape Cod is one big mass of evolving and dissolving
sand and land, sometimes it’s hard to see with your own eyes where all this
erosion is taking place. Nature is tricky like that. There is a little hike
that I like to take in Eastham between Nauset Light and Marconi Beach that reveals
some of the Cape's secrets. There are a
couple different ways to get to this area by biking or hiking the meandering
trails and fire roads of the Cape Cod National Seashore. There’s access from the rail trail that
starts in Wellfleet as well as a number of other access points throughout the
park. I’m pretty familiar with this
area, so I just look for a well-established trail that’s heading due east. There’s
only one outcome – an 80 foot dune.
When you get to the cliff - you stop! This part is along what used to be Nauset Light Beach Road. Most of the paved road has crumbled away and fallen to the sands below...
And it's not going to relent anytime soon...
The path I followed literally disintegrated into the dune and
disappeared…
A new path was stomped into the woods several yards away from the dangerous edge...
I'm pretty sure the entire Cape isn't going to slip into the sea anytime soon, but New England is certainly due for a major Hurricane in the near furure - and with it will come the inevitable changes...
One last thing, if you ever get a chance to see an amazing band (Banditas) perform in a beach parking lot on top of a dune - you should do that...
