New England's record-breaking wet summer: hiking partially flooded Dune Shacks Trail gives an impression

Dune Shacks Trail under fresh water, where the beach and salt water of the Atlancic Ocean is just a dune away

Massachusetts is approaching records for the wettest summer to date [1]. On Cape Cod, I found the Dune Shacks Trail partially flooded this year, while hiking from Provincetown to the Dune Shacks Beach on September 11, 2021. Doing the same trip at the end of September last year, the Dune Shacks area was completely dry—desert-like, the trail a sandy path. This year, it was a coastal-dune and bogs experience.

Dune Shacks Trail scenery after late-summer rain

Plant communities here have adopted to tolerate hot and dry, and sometimes salty, conditions [2]. Along the trail between the dunes, I found shallow accumulations of red-brown water of various size with thriving shrubs. Like other hikers, I was delighted seeing the masses of dense, creeping cranberry plants (Heath family). Often half under water, the yellow-to-red berries, ripening at the upper stem, were reflected in the water. Some berries were floating or even drowned. 

Cranberries hugging the water surface

Cranberries over sand

A bayberry shrub backdropped by a puddle of water with cranberries

View from under a pine tree: color pattern of water on sand

References and further reading

[1] Cassie McGrath: Massachusetts may break record for wettest summer, a hallmark of climate change, experts say.  MASS LIVE. Aug. 25, 2021. URL: https://www.masslive.com/weather/2021/08/massachusetts-may-break-record-for-wettest-summer-a-hallmark-of-climate-change-experts-say.html.

[2] Sand Dunes. National Park Service, Cape Cod. URL: https://www.nps.gov/caco/learn/nature/sand-dunes.htm.

Dune Shacks Trail under rain water turning brown and pink