Hike #1174; Massapequa to Jones Beach

Hike #1174; Massapequa to Jones Beach

11/12/18 Massapequa to Jones Beach with Jennifer Berndt, Jim “Mr. Buckett” Mathews, “Major Tom” Conroy, and Alex Gisser

This next hike would be another point to point, this time in our Long Island series that I’d been meaning to get back to, but there’s just too much stuff going on.

Out before sunrise

The Long Island Series has been a really great one, and exciting in a different way than other trail series, than any historic canal or railroad route, because there aren’t so many rules to it, at least for now.
When I started this one, I had the idea that I wanted to get from the west end, at Brooklyn, all the way out to Montauk Point at the east end. We started by crossing the Brooklyn Bridge and headed south through the city, around Coney Island, and continued to the east. This would be the eighth in that series of exploring Long Island.
These hikes are different because it’s all about simply the most interesting way of getting to the east. It doesn’t have to be direct, and it doesn’t have to be anything in particular.

Lake in Massapequa

No one is going to get bored with this series, because this series has not been the same. We’ve done paved shore line paths, beach sections, abandoned railroad grades, college campuses, formal trails, golf courses, and more.
On the last hike, we had begun at Hempstead, and we hiked to Long Island Greenbelt south, using the Nassau-Suffolk Greenbelt to get to the Massapequa train station, a rather obvious jump off point because our city friends have an easy time meeting there or getting out there.
From where we left off, there are two trails that both go long distance. The Long Island Greenbelt is a white blazed trail, mostly footpath, which extends from below Massapequa Station north all the way to Cold Spring Harbor on the north end.

Lake in Massapequa

The Nassau-Suffolk Greenbelt is a parallel trail which does not go quite as far, but is paved and multi use, whereas the other is a hiking only trail.
The previous time, in the name of saving time, we hiked the paved route, and so I decided we would take that to the southern terminus this time, and we’ll return to do the white blazed trail as a full through hike possibly in the Spring. I feel like it will be a more rewarding thing this way.

Dam at Massapequa

We met at Jones Beach, which was our end point, and rather than shuttle to the start in my van, we opted to go for an Uber Ex and get there more easily, then leave direct at the end.

The trail follows some road

We were only waiting at the parking lot a few moments when our driver was already showing up. It said his name was “Terrance” and he was an “excellent conversationalist”.
I knew this could be hilarious, a great “conversationalist” and Mr. Buckett in the same car.
He ended up being a really nice guy, told us about his daughter and the sports she was playing, and how his emotionless son was ready to cry when he went away to college, and that he was like a big baby that cries over everything.

The trail

Unlike other Uber drivers, he didn’t have a GPS going the entire time. He was just sort of figuring it out, and then had it on toward the end, but it put him in the wrong spot. We were only a few blocks away, and he got us there.
We arrived at the station, then walked over to the CVS near the station parking lot where we met up with Alex.
We went into the CVS and got snacks and such for on the way, and then started heading to the east, out of the station lot, and onto the trail into the Massapequa Preserve.

Massapequa Lake

We reached the intersection with the north/south Nassau-Suffolk Greenbelt Trail, and turned to the right, which led us along the shore of a lovely lake.

Massapequa Lake

There were a lot of people around, fishing from the berms and such. We walked along and got pictures of the pretty views, then the trail turned to the right at the main dam to pass over the outflow, and beneath the railroad tracks. It then went past a parking spot and to the left out to the side of Sunrise Highway. This section here was called the Bethpage Bikeway as per the google maps. The trail passed along the road for a short distance, and the white blazed trail joined it for this stretch, to the intersection with Lakeshore Boulevard.

Ruins

We crossed over at the crosswalk, and the trail turned hard right to follow the Sunrise Highway for a bit, then turned to the left back into the woods and parallel with the Massapequa Creek. The white blazed trail broke off to the right almot immediately, and then crossed over the paved trail again just ahead. Already I wished in a way I had scheduled the hike on that rather than what we were doing, but both are on my short list of things to do next.

Massapequa Lake

The white blazed trail weaved in and out of the woods along the left, coming back to and leaving the paved trail as we continued to the south.

Bethpage Bikeway

There was a stone ruin of some sort on the right side of the trail as we walked through the woods, then we reached the west edge of Massapequa Lake with some great views.
The trail came much closer to Ocean Avenue, and continued to the south barely inside the park. I spotted a lovely Great Blue Heron on the left through the trees as we walked. The others got far ahead of me here, deep already in conversation with Mr. Buckett.

Heron

We continued along the trail with more waterfront views to the end of the Massapequa Preserve at Merrick Road.
At this point, we were at the southern terminus of the Nassau-Suffolk Greenbelt and the white blazed trail. The triple blaze was right there at the end. The others had already made the corner and were headed out along Merrick Road to the left, which was not the way we were going. I had to check my phone GPS to be sure of our next turns, so this was a good little spot to take a break.

Great Blue Heron

I started looking at the maps and figured out where we needed to go heading to the east, which would involve a little bit of road walking, and then another preserve.

End of the trail

There was an historic marker on the corner, denoting that the area just south of this point was the former site of the Massapequa Hotel. There was an early brick house there built in 1696, but it was demolished to build the hotel which was opened in 1888.
The hotel was active from 1888 until 1916 when it went bankrupt and was dismantled, with portions of it used for another hotel and to build a few area houses. The hotel had a golf course, riding stables, a boat house, bathing pavilion, and rooms to host three hundred guests.

Historic hotel image

The lake at the end of the preserve was used heavily for ice skating. I went over some more maps and got myself a drink from my bag, when I noticed a monument in trees.

Historic marker

I pushed the stuff out of the way and found a plaque to a Raymond Anderson (1903 - 1919), found of the first troop of Boy Scouts of America in Massapequa.
I am not sure if this was the first troop that was formed after the official formation of Boy Scouts of America, or if it was just the first one in town.
Boy Scouts date back to England, and the term “Scout” has been used by an organization there as well as several other “scout” groups in America years before the BSA came together.

Old scout marker

Many of these earlier organizations merged into the BSA, so which troop was the first I am not really certain.
Regardless of all of this, even if it was the first troop only in Massapequa, it makes me sad to see that this monument was not maintained by any boy scouts, and remained obscured within the shrubbery.
I figured out what we were doing, and we were on our way. We turned to the right on Merrick Road for a bit, and continued until there was a strip mall on the right hand side, then cut to the right through it’s parking lot heading northwest.

Another historic marker

We crossed Division Avenue, and then continued on Orchard Street. We immediately came across yet another historic marker on another hotel. This one was the Van De Water Hotel, which was built in 1796, and lasted until the late 1800s when it was destroyed by fire.
The hotel was a gathering spot for local militia and hosted President Chester A. Arthur. It was part of a coach line between this area and Sag Harbor.

Van De Water Hotel from Massapequa Historic Society

We continued up the road a bit more, and came across a shopping cart just as we were reaching the eastern end of the Tackapausha Preserve.

Tackapausha Preserve crossing Seaford Creek

Alex was joking about how we always found carts on previous hikes, and brought them with us to carry our stuff for a while. In fact, I’d pushed one many miles through Woonsocket Rhode Island recently, and then again for a good while in Easton on a night hike.
This time, Major Tom jumped into the cart, and I pushed him onto the trail that parallels Seaford Avenue in the Tackapausha Preserve. This trail led to the left soon, and out across the Seaford Creek on a bridge with some lovely wetland views.

Tackapausha Preserve

Tom stayed in the cart for a while here, but the trail split and was soon no longer paved. I couldn’t keep pushing him in it on the regular ground, so he got out and I continued.

Tackapausha Preserve

The trail weaved to the right, and a branch went to the right further. I’m not sure how far the trails go. We kept to the left, out past a house, then a bit further to the Tackapausha Nature Preserve Museum. It was closed at this time or we’d have certainly gone in to have a look around.
As we reached the parking area for the preserve, there was a cop parked there. I left the shopping cart over by a dumpster there so I just looked like a good Samaritan leaving the cart I’d found in the preserve. It already must have looked weird, a guy in a suit and tie with some other people out pushing a shopping cart form the woods.

Lunch stop at Seaford Delicatessen

We came out to Washington Avenue and cut through the back parking lot of some businesses heading east. I let everyone know we should stop for food somewhere in this area.

Cat shelters on the incompleted highway right of way

This town area was known as Seaford.
This area was founded by Captain John Seaman of England, who also apparently helped the settlement of Hempstead in Connecticut, in the 1600s. He named the area Jerusalem South, although it was widely known as Seaman’s Neck, and a road in town still bears that name. The name was officially changed to Seaford in 1868, in honor of the captain’s home town in England. The area grew with the development of Long Island Railroad in the mid 1800s, followed by the construction of the Sunrise Highway (we crossed earlier) in 1929.

More and more places banning dogs, especially LI

We walked out to Merrick Road, and then followed it to the west for a bit. We somehow passed most of the establishments, and there wasn’t really anything left to eat on the route that I had proposed, so we had to turn around and walk back the direction we’d come to find something.
We settled on the Seaford Delicatessen, a little narrow place a few blocks back, where we could get sandwiches and such. Mr. Buckett purchased some slabs of chicken he shared with us.

Cedar Creek Park

Mr. Buckett also got me some pasta salad as a reward for driving.
We hung out here for a bit, and then continued on our way along Merrick Road to the east. I headed out of the store after Mr. Buckett said we should get going, and so did Alex and Jen, but somehow Major Tom and Mr. Buckett both didn’t realize we were going, and we had to wait up the street for them for a little bit. We stopped at another store for more drinks, and then continued beneath the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway.

Cedar Creek Park

This highway was first proposed in the 1950s, and work began in 1959 for the expressway across Long Island. This was one of seemingly countless Robert Moses highway projects of the time, which were often met with opposition.
Moses won out with the main trunk of this highway, and it was completed in it’s current state in 1969, but incomplete stubs still exist at each end. To the north, it was to be extended by way of a grand bridge across the Long Island Sound to Westchester County.

Robert Moses stuff on Wantagh Parkway

The idea died out, but is still occasionally talked about. More recently, the concept of a tunnel beneath the sound has even been discussed.
My plan for this hike was to try to follow the incomplete highway right of way to the south.

Wantaugh Parkway Path

The pavement ends, but there is a swath of undeveloped space that continues from the end over other streets to the Wantaugh Parkway. The route was proposed to extend to Jones Beach, but it never came to fruition.
Jones Beach was however connected to the main land by the Wantaugh State Parkway in 1927. The first section completed was known as the Jones Beach Causeway, the section of bridges over the channels around the Oyster Bay. The highway was extended north in 1932 and 1938 to the other parkways.

Wantaugh Parkway view west of Oliver's Channel

Many of these uncompleted Robert Moses projects turned into greenways and hiking trails, but this stub at the bottom of this highway did not, but I figured we could get through somehow.
When we got to the east section of it along the active highway, there was no way in along side of it because it had some big chain link fences around it. We went through to the other side, turned to the left on Neptune Ave, and then left again on Ladonia Street.

Island Creek from Wantaugh Parkway

There was no way really into the abandoned highway route. There was some woods, but it really wasn’t anything passable. Just a bad, scrubby mess of weeds.

Island Creek view

There was really no way of walking the highway route. At one point there was a small path into a bit of the woods, which led to a cat colony with lots of little shelters.

Seaman's Island

There was no path beyond the point, but it was cool to see that there was this active spay/neuter/release group around there. It’s not the best solution, but it’s better than killing them.
Neptune Avenue headed south across some of the highway route, and then we turned to the right on Roanoke Street. This took us through a little neighborhood to the west, then we turned to the right on Cedar Street. It wasn’t too far from there that we turned to the right at a corner onto a paved path into Cedar Creek Park.

Goose Creek section

The path took us across an access road and then out to a grassy open area. There was a hill in the very center of the park, which we climbed up to where there were picnic pavilions and such. This was a good little spot for a break before we headed out into the wide open following the Wantaugh Parkway.
Mr. Buckett had us laughing pretty hard at pretty much everything he was saying, so the time went by fast.

Jones Beach Causeway

After crossing a few more access lanes, we came to an historic marker on Robert Moses and the Wantaugh Parkway, and then continued onto the paved pathway that parallels the parkway from Cedar Creek Park heading south to Jones Beach.
This was our big connection to Jones Beach that I’d been wanting to do for a while. We had done a hike with the idea we would connect to Jones Beach a little less than a year ago. That plan didn’t work out because it turned out it was illegal to hike the other parkways to it.

View on Jones Beach Causeway

The path, called the Jones Beach Bikeway, took us to the south along the highway, and then over a bridge that crosses the Island Creek, a section of estuary.

View into the bay

We passed onto Great Island, followed by another lesser section of it known as Low Island. To the west, we could see to the Meadowbrook Parkway Bridge, which also crosses to Jones Beach, and was my original planned access point.
In the other direction, we could see plenty out toward South Oyster Bay.
After a long section of causeway, we crossed a bridge over Goose Creek section. In that area, there is a toll booth for entering Jones Beach. Tolls are taken until Columbus Day.

Green Island Fishing Pier

The section was known as Green Island, and there’s a fishing pier that passes beneath the next section of bridge, and then up the other side to a parking area.

Green Island Fishing Pier

We walked down to the pier area, and it had a pretty nice little view. The pier took us under the bridge and along the Sloop Channel, or New York State Boat Channel. Rather than continue back up to the paved bike path section, I climbed up to the west end of the bridge, which did not say pedestrians couldn’t be on it, and we headed across the last section of bridge. Once we got to the other side, I considered going down to the water, because there was some good beach, but instead opted to stay on the road a bit longer to avoid wetlands.

View west toward Meadowbrook State Parkway bridge

This was the worst part of the hike for me. It seemed like forever we were walking the section of road curving to the right along the north end of Jones Beach island. We pretty much stayed in the grass parallel with the waterfront, but there were no paths cutting through to get to the water.
We weren’t able to get down to the water until we reached Field #10, where there were piers and such. When we finally got there, there were some rocks and such along the shore, and it was a perfect place to relax and take a little break.

Green Island path

Major Tom loves these beach style hikes, both the beaches themselves and the oceanfront neighborhoods, and so this was a blast from the past for him, because he loved the NJ ones.

Jones Beach Causeway bridge

Ironically, I found that Jones Beach is named for Major Thomas Jones, who had set up a whaling station near the site of the present day park in the 1600s!

Jones Beach Causeway

With over six million visitors annually, Jones Beach is the most visited beach on the east coast of the United States, more than Florida, Virginia Beach, or any of the Jersey beaches.

Art deco stone bridge

Jones Beach State Park, like the Wantaugh Parkway that accesses it, was a project of Robert Moses.
At the time of the park’s development, Moses was the President of Long Island State Park Commission.
Prior to development, the natural barrier island was only about four feet above sea level, and stormy weather would make the entire island disappear under the water. The island as we know it today was altered by dredging nearby and bringing sand up to the island. It was a miserable situation for workers, who had sand constantly blowing on them. Beach grasses were found to hold dunes in place, and so they were planted by workers, all by hand.

Jones Beach causeway bridge

The structures associated with the park and the causeway, including the bridges, bath houses, other buildings, and the large tower in the circle near the park entrance, are of Art Deco style made with expensive Ohio sandstone.

View of the channel

The park opened up in 1929, and in 1930 Robert Moses hired Rosebud Yellow Robe, a Native American educator and folklorist from South Dakota to run educational programs for children in a mock up indian village modeled after those of the Plains Indians.
At the time, there was still a negative stigma and a degree of fear associated with Native Americans. They were portrayed in movies as savages and scalpers, and almost always played the roll of the villain. Yellow Robe played a roll of breaking down these stereotypes and raising awareness of the plight of native Americans.

The second Major Tom of Jones Beach

There is apparently a major feral cat problem on Long Island, as we soon came across more signs saying not to feed or abandon cats in the area.

Sad people leave cats

After we finished with our break, we began walking down the beach heading to the west, on the north side of the island parallel with the Sloop Channel.
We continued walking along, and passed a harbor seal watch spot. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any seals this time.
It was pretty good beach we had to walk for a while, up until we got closer to the Meadowbrook Parkway bridge. There, we had to walk through some grassy mess for a bit, but once we were past it and onto sand, it got easier again to the road.

Short Island Beach

We were going to climb up to the road and go across it, but then I figured I would try to pass beneath the bridge along the way.
There were a ton of large rocks, but I was able to climb over pretty easily and make my way under the bridge.
On the other side, there were tons of rocks piled up on the north shore. I had to climb down them very carefully, which was not easy because of how slick they were. I got ahead of the group a bit, and then we had a good section of firm but comfortable beach.
The others climbed down the rocks, and we had to continue across some wet areas to make our way along the north beach. Some of it was really shallow flows of water, but there was once major one by the time we got to Shore Island Beach. There was like an inland pond with a peninsula of sand going out around it.

Heading to Short Island Beach

When we got to that end of the peninsula, most everyone tried to find a way around it, but I just walked right on through the water to get to the other side.

jellyfish

There was a nice boardwalk and some benches beyond.
The bay is always interesting because we see different things than we see when walking the regular beaches. There were always horseshoe craps and such, but there were also some really huge jellyfish along the way.
We took a break at the boardwalk section, which was nice, but I soon realized that after this break and the previous one, we were down about an hour and a half or so. I didn’t realize we took so much time there. We had to get moving.

Ham

I pretty much knew at this point that we were not going to be finished before dark, but I at least wanted to get around the end of the island before that. I scaled off a minimum of seven miles to walk around the west end.
We started moving along the boardwalk, and rather than sticking with the shore, we went directly up where the boardwalk turned, and passed around some islands of trees. We then crossed an access road and entered onto a gravel road.
There is a US Coast Guard station on the north side, and I’m not sure if they want people going through this section without a permit. There were several people there, but we just wandered on in and didn't have a problem.
The road led right out to the west end of the beach, and followed along the shore up on a slope. We continued on to the end of the parking area and went around the bollards out onto a very nice beach, which went around the west end. It was easy to walk, packed by the tide, and very comfortable.

Some boardwalk

It was a very long walk out toward the end of this island. As we moved on, I could see over to Point Lookout, the furthest east settlement on the next island over. We had followed around the outside of that a while back, and walked a natural causeway out on the water that was quite nice. It was nice to be out to where we were looking before.
A stone rip rap wall started to show up along the left, and came out along the water as we walked, on our left hand side. It continued as a jetty out to the very end of the island.

West end of Jones Beach

We walked along the jetty walls as long as we humanly could. It then got to where waves were crashing up against it and we couldn’t keep walking along it. We would have to climb up.

Jetty

This was no easy task. It was slippery as all hell. Still, we got through it and made our way along the beach heading to the west.
The sun was starting to set, and I thought we might get a good view a while earlier, but by this point it was getting to be really cloudy. By the time the sun was setting, it was only a faintly brighter mark on the clouds. We continued heading to the east as the sun kept going down. Before long it was completely dark. A few people here and there were still in the park.

Major Tom on the beach

It was quite a ways back to where we parked at Field 6, but we passed the time talking about all sorts of stuff. Alex mentioned his recent trip through the mountains of Spain. Mr. Buckett entertained us with all sorts of stuff. Before we knew it, we were looking toward Lot 6 where we parked.
This was really a great time with diversity and opening doors to more stuff. I am now ready to do an entire hike solely on Jones Beach, and I’m also ready to host a similar on on Long Island Greenbelt/Nassau Suffolk Greenbelt. It was a great day and a great place to leave off.