Mark’s Score 8.3
Finally, summer is over, and nothing could make me happier. If I wanted the weather we get in July and August I would have moved to Florida. The weather is cooler and the sky is grey, that means it is time for me to once again hike Delmarva’s state and national parks. In celebration of the first cool grey weather of the season, I took a hike on the Old Furnace Loop Trails in the Pocomoke State Forest.
The Furnace Loop Trails are managed by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. The trails follow old logging roads through a forest used by the old Nassawango Iron Furnace works, which are now showcased at the Furnace Town Museum, which is situated next to the entrance of the Yellow Trail. In the early 1800s this forest was used as a source of charcoal for the iron works. After the iron works closed in the 1840s the forest returned to its natural state. The Yellow Loop takes you through the ecologically rare shortleaf pine and mixed oak forest situated on an ancient inland sand dune. The Maryland DNR deliberately uses prescribed fires to preserve this rare habitat.
The day I went for a hike we were having our first Nor’easter of the season and there were extensive coastal flood warnings. The Old Furnace Loop Trails are on relatively high ground, so I figured I would be safe on the Yellow Loop. The Yellow Loop crosses an ancient inland dune, walking on this trail is like walking on the beach, meaning it is a more strenuous walk than the other trails. Fortunately, it is short, only 1.8 miles (2.9 K). The forest is dense, but the trail is well marked, including a whimsical sasquatch crossing marker at the beginning of the trail. Or maybe there are indeed sasquatch, it was inclement, so perhaps they were all at home watching TV the day I walked the trail.
Though I did not run across any sasquatch, or any other animal for that matter, there is still plenty to see in this forest. The DNR posted a sign about prescribed burns and there were multiple locations along the trail where the trees where scorched. But in spite of the burns, or maybe because of them, there were multiple wild flowers in bloom, golden rod (yellow and white), eastern groundsel, and Maryland golden-aster.
The DNR website focuses on how this forest is unique, and at first blush, you could be forgiven for thinking that it looks pretty ordinary. But the Yellow Loop Trail traverses a forest that looks very deferent to other area forests, including other forests within in the Pocomoke State Forest. This is sandy high ground, so you don’t see any cypress, and few loblollies. This forest is populated with alder and oaks. There are no marshes, nor low-lying swamp land. But it is a pretty trail through a rare inland sand dune that you will find nowhere else on the peninsula, just be prepared to get sand in your shoes.
What else is there to do in Snow Hill?
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