DAN'S PAPERS, July 18, 2008 Page 116 www.danshamptons.com
Life S tyle
TAKE
A HIKE
By Ken Kindler
Through the Trails of Springs
Accabonac Preserve. The trail now enters a vast beech wood. The aggressive shallow roots push out competition from other trees, and the dense leaf canopy blocks the sunlight. The understory is shaded and covered in beech leaves. This is a lovely place to stop for lunch. A trail marked with blue blazes branches to the left and intersects with the PP further east. A narrow trail takes us to a wide, straight dirt road. After coming out of a deep kettle, cross Old Accabonac Highway, and enter the High Point Preserve through post and rail kissing gates. Entering the preserve, the PP once again intersects the blue trail. Turn right, and for a short distance there are oak/hickory woods, then beech once again predominates. The trail runs along the ridges of a rolling knob and kettle topography of the Stony Hill Preserve. For a short distance, we see the yellow dot blazes of the Springs Amagansett Trail along with the white PP blazes. Where that trail splits off to the left, it leads to parking at Red Dirt Road. Deb Foster, a retired council person on the East Hampton Town Board, conceived the Springs/Amagansett Trail. She approached EHTPS in early 2006 with a proposal to establish a north/south neighborhood trail that would link the two hamlets. Her original idea was for a 10-mile trail to run from Maidstone Park in Springs to the ocean beach in Amagansett. It was found that many land parcels were not readily available; however, they did build a trail that now runs 4.5 miles from the center of Springs to the center of Amagansett, and it was completed in late October 2007. Over half the trail was created from existing trails with little cutting or disturbance to land parcels. Eventually this trail may be expanded to the original plan. To find more walks on Long Island visit litlc.org
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Harjen, engineered the project at its culmination, but the original designer was Ilmar Ratsep, another longtime member of the trails society. Mr. Ratsep was stricken with cancer and passed away several years earlier. His widow designated EHTPS to be the recipient of donations in lieu of flowers. The town of East Hampton provided a grant of $2000, and the remaining $2000 was defrayed by these donations and EHTPS. The trails society dedicated the bridge in Ilmar Ratsep’s name with a bronze plaque. Travel a short distance through red maple wetlands and come through another set of gates onto Gardiners Cove Road. Follow Gardiners Cove Road a short distance to the end and cross Three Mile Harbor Road. A right turn takes you along a dirt road known as Karlsruhe/Cross Highway. The trail takes you into the woods, parallel and north of Abraham’s Path. A left turn takes the trail parallel to Springs Fireplace Road. At Shadom Lane, cross over Springs Fireplace Road. Walk a short distance along the road before cutting back into the woods, again within sight of the road. A right turn takes you into the Peconic Land Trust’s
Bo t
Last week we followed the Paumanok Path (PP) through the Northwest Woods to the intersection of Springy Banks Road and Soak Hides Road. Soak Hides Road connects Three Mile Harbor and Springy Banks Roads in East Hampton. The PP originally bypassed Tanbark Creek via this road. This walk takes us 3.5 miles along the PP to where it intersects and follows the Springs/Amagansett Trail for a short distance. This trailhead is on Red Dirt Road about a half-mile east of Old Accabonac Highway. From here, you can follow the Springs/Amagansett Trail a quarter-mile south to the PP. There is a large grassy shoulder located across from the dirt drive that leads into the Cathy Lester Preserve. This wide, dirt drive gives access to Gardiners Bay at the southern end of Northwest Harbor. Just before reaching the water, the trail turns right, taking the hiker through a post and rail kissing gate. Here we cross Tanbark Creek or Soak Hides Dreen on the Ilmar Ratsep Bridge. The East Hampton Trails Preservation Society (EHTPS) built this 175 foot long bridge in 2000. From the bridge, if you look north, you can see the Bay and to the south, there is the clear creek. Native Americans would soak cattle hides in the dreen. Twenty-eight EHTPS volunteers, whose average age was over 60, built the Tanbark Creek Bridge dedicated as the Ilmar Ratsep Bridge in fall of 2000. The bridge was financed with funds from three sources. Longtime member of the EHTPS, Ray