What a gem this place is. Owned and managed by The Nature Conservancy is is one of the largest remaining maritime forests on the east coast. It is starkly different than adjacent Jockeys Ridge. Imagine the sand dunes of Jockeys Ridge covered in forest instead. That is what you have here. It is shielded from the Ocean winds and salt spray by Jockeys Ridge. The green lake above is one of many seen throughout the woods. They are rainwater fed and covered in algae.
Unlike the maritime forest of Currituck, tall trees grow here. I feel like I'm in the Uwharrie forest, not Nags Head. As we hiked through the forest, we ran into Kevin Zorc and his wife Charlotte, Nature Conservancy employees doing some trailwork. We would run into them again on another day. Kevin pointed out some interesting things to see.
We accessed the woods from 4 different trailheads, two of which were Nature Conservancy owned and the other two were city of Nags Head parks.
You can see that this is a sand dune which has evolved into a mature forest. We also walked through a swamp and accessed the sound in two different areas.
One of the trails leading to the sound had an audio tour at about a dozen QR code stops. That was most informative. The very first colonial and early American inhabitants lived here on the sound side. Today, all the development is on the ocean side. The only means of access back in the day, was the sound. Boats could not land on the beach but could on the calmer waters of the sound. So, the sound was the main transportation route. The sound side is also protected from the ocean winds and salt spray. And, it has fresh water. Communities grew up in the protected maritime forests.
In the 1920s, automobile roads were established and the communities began to die out. We didn't see much evidence of the former homes except a few bricks and metal. However, there are cemeteries hidden in the woods. The one pictured below is still maintained by a family member living nearby.
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