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Guest
Guest
Much like swamp paddling I love me some Spartina grass marsh time. Amber waves of native plant, glowing pale yellow in winter’s low angle light. Invasive Phragmites excepted.
To that end Dorchester County Maryland may reign supreme in the Mid-Atlantic region. The highest point in Dorchester County is only 50 feet above sea level, at that is probably a pile of chicken crap outside a hen house alongside one of the few high ground roads in Maryland’s least populated county.
Ain’t much high ground here, and the bugs in summer would surely precede insanity. How people lived here before window screens is beyond me. Excluding Harriet Tubbman; she must have been a tough old gal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Tubman
But, off-season, at least when it isn’t one of the duck hunting splits , Dorchester County is a rare marsh treat.
Dorchester has as much inhabitable marshland as any place north of Florida. The Blackwater and Little Blackwater Rivers, in or outside of the eponymous Nat’l Wildlife Refuge (which itself is a special treat to visit), Island Creek/Pokata Creek, the hunt-clubbed on either side Chicamacomico River, the mystifying maze of the Taylors Island passages (bring your GPS).
The best of Dorchester County is the Transquaking River, launching at the boat ramp on the dirt road on the right just before the arched single lane woodplank Bestpitch Ferry Bridge. There is a launch on the other side of the bridge; that put in across the river sucks. I love “just before” directions; turn around and go back.
The Transquaking from Bestpitch may be the best, easiest and most interesting that marsh paddling the eastern shore has to offer. Mostly because it is a 5+ mile marsh paddle loop along a great oxbow circle and thorofare, with numerous side sloughs that probe back at paddling depth, ever narrowing into the marsh for a half mile or more. Paddle every side slough, jumping birds every thirty feet and it is a 8 or 10 mile trip to remember.
That loop trip has two forested high ground islands, Chance Island and Guinea Island, each with their own peculiarities. Think backwoods moonshine distillery (how the heck did they drive that rusted Model A and Studebaker Lark onto the island? Frozen river abandonment I suspect), and a high sandy bluff campsite on Guinea respectively.
The DelMarva peninsula has 50 or 60 paddle-able creeks and rivers, ranging from trout streams to shad runs to swamp, marsh, sound, bay & barrier island, all within that peculiar narrow dangle.
The DelMarVa is the mid-Atlantic equivalent of North Florida’s inland “Nature Coast”, with more variety, and a whole lot less people. And a whole lot less appreciated.
See it before sea level rise or construction of a 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] Bay Bridge between Cove Point and Meekins Neck ruins it.
To that end Dorchester County Maryland may reign supreme in the Mid-Atlantic region. The highest point in Dorchester County is only 50 feet above sea level, at that is probably a pile of chicken crap outside a hen house alongside one of the few high ground roads in Maryland’s least populated county.
Ain’t much high ground here, and the bugs in summer would surely precede insanity. How people lived here before window screens is beyond me. Excluding Harriet Tubbman; she must have been a tough old gal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Tubman
But, off-season, at least when it isn’t one of the duck hunting splits , Dorchester County is a rare marsh treat.
Dorchester has as much inhabitable marshland as any place north of Florida. The Blackwater and Little Blackwater Rivers, in or outside of the eponymous Nat’l Wildlife Refuge (which itself is a special treat to visit), Island Creek/Pokata Creek, the hunt-clubbed on either side Chicamacomico River, the mystifying maze of the Taylors Island passages (bring your GPS).
The best of Dorchester County is the Transquaking River, launching at the boat ramp on the dirt road on the right just before the arched single lane woodplank Bestpitch Ferry Bridge. There is a launch on the other side of the bridge; that put in across the river sucks. I love “just before” directions; turn around and go back.
The Transquaking from Bestpitch may be the best, easiest and most interesting that marsh paddling the eastern shore has to offer. Mostly because it is a 5+ mile marsh paddle loop along a great oxbow circle and thorofare, with numerous side sloughs that probe back at paddling depth, ever narrowing into the marsh for a half mile or more. Paddle every side slough, jumping birds every thirty feet and it is a 8 or 10 mile trip to remember.
That loop trip has two forested high ground islands, Chance Island and Guinea Island, each with their own peculiarities. Think backwoods moonshine distillery (how the heck did they drive that rusted Model A and Studebaker Lark onto the island? Frozen river abandonment I suspect), and a high sandy bluff campsite on Guinea respectively.
The DelMarva peninsula has 50 or 60 paddle-able creeks and rivers, ranging from trout streams to shad runs to swamp, marsh, sound, bay & barrier island, all within that peculiar narrow dangle.
The DelMarVa is the mid-Atlantic equivalent of North Florida’s inland “Nature Coast”, with more variety, and a whole lot less people. And a whole lot less appreciated.
See it before sea level rise or construction of a 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] Bay Bridge between Cove Point and Meekins Neck ruins it.
