#47 Henlopen State Park, Lewes, DE: Fort Miles and Forest Trails/ 4.5 miles
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| Battery 516, Fort Miles |
Grandson Aiden joined me on this hike in Henlopen State Park to stitch together two trails through maritime forest and a coastal defense fort from WWII. We had fun exploring the artillery pieces and climbing Watch Tower #4 (of 11 on the Delaware coast) and enjoying a cold but beautiful walk through the Pitch and Loblolly Pines.
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| Buried forest |
The Walking Dunes Trails loops through an active moving dune area where rolling hills of sand pushed inland by ocean winds bury and expose maritime forest as they go. We walked through the treetops of 20 and 30-foot trees that had only their tops exposed. We were lucky that the frigid wind had slacked off from the past few days and we could actually endure the open spaces. Only hours before our hike, the temperature was 5 degrees but now it was a toasty 18 F.
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| Climbing the watch tower |
Fort Miles is a historic military installation, one of many that survive in various states of neglect or preservation along the Mid-Atlantic coast. Like many others, it helped defend vulnerable areas against enemy attack, specifically Nazi U-Boats that threatened ship traffic to and from the refineries on the Delaware River. The fort's above-ground buildings are low and small, placed well into the Great Dune area and hidden from Atlantic view. Much of the base operated from secured positions buried beneath the sand in artillery and command batteries.. It was fun to walk along and see random air exchange pipes emerge from the forest floor. "Oh! There's something buried under us!" We found all of the main bunkers along the Walking Dune path and guessed at what kinds of shells and explosive things may have been stored beneath the surface.
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| Watching for U-Boats! |
To get the only view in town, we climbed Watch Tower #4, the only tower at this time that is open to the public. It was a long spiral walk up and Amos did not care for it. At our first slit window view, he sat down and refused to go any further, so Aiden completed the tower climb on his own and took some great pictures from the observation deck on the roof.
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| Maritime forest |
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| 16-inch gun (one of two) that guarded the mouth of the Delaware River |
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| Forest trail |
Our walk continued into the woods and out to a frozen marsh where ice shone like crystals under the sun. To avoid the people who were beginning to fill the main trail, we took a spur trail through the forest. So many twisty trees, spun and shaped by the wind, that we began naming them: Twisty Timmy, Bent Barb, Sideways Sam...
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| Frozen marsh |
It was fun to see how the enclosed forest and the open sand plains compared to each other in the frigid temperatures. The forest seemed almost warm as we unzipped out jackets and pulled off our mittens. But as soon as we emerged on to an open sand plain, zip went the jackets and on went the mittens! Aiden was excited to learn that Prickly Pear Cactus is a native eastern cactus and we had fun checking out how this plant deals with frigid cold. Wrinkled and puckered in the cold, the lobes of the cactus are still bright green, photosynthesizing their food under the harsh, low sun.
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| Prickly Pear Cactus |
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| Walking Dunes Trail |
At four miles we turned on to a bike trail for the half mile walk to the truck. We heard a Pileated Woodpecker and the squeaky toy call of a White-breasted Nuthatch. Try as we could, we never did see either bird. So we counted them for birding-by-ear. We said hello to American Holly, Sweet Gum, and tough little oaks on the edge of the forest where the dune threatened to overrun the path.
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| Ocean view from the top of the Watch Tower. Photo credit: Aiden |
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| Fort Miles and the Atlantic. Photo credit: Aiden |
Notes:
Fort Miles is has a museum inside Battery 516 but today it was closed. I hope we have a chance to go back and see it.
https://fortmilesha.org/
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