60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: Boston. Lafe Low

      Plan to spend the whole day at Crane Beach, and even then you won’t want to leave.

      ON THIS HIKE you will follow the shoreline of one of Massachusetts’s most immaculate beaches. Approaching the marshes of Essex and the coast of Gloucester, you’ll cross into the high dunes of the inner beach and hike back along where the waves meet the beach.

      DESCRIPTION

      One of the few hikes in this book that you could do barefoot, this trip along the shores and through the dune sea of Crane Beach is quite an experience. From the parking lot to the right of the entrance, take the southernmost boardwalk to the beach. If it is a warm, clear day, you will want to free your feet from your shoes, sink your toes in the sand, and feast your eyes on the cobalt-blue sea.

      When the air is dry and free of haze and fog, you can sometimes see the Isles of Shoals off the coast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, as dark slivers on the horizon. On most days, you’ll also see Newburyport’s Plum Island stretching close to Ipswich’s densely populated Great Neck; Little Neck on the left across from the mouth of Fox Creek; and the grand estate at Castle Hill. On a beach as pristine as Crane, just wandering about as your spirit wills makes more sense than following a prescribed route. This hike therefore invites—even encourages—improvisation as it leads from the water-lapped tide line to the deep sands of Crane’s highest inner dunes and back.

      To start your exploration, turn right and lay down some footprints in the sand as you head southeast. Though New England’s beach season is understood to run from the first day of summer through Labor Day, a good many New Englanders know the beach is at its most sublime in autumn. It even has a dramatic appeal during the winter months. Though the water at Crane Beach is often warmer than at nearby Plum Island, it can still be numbingly cold all year. It’s most tolerable (least painful?) in August, particularly at low tide, after sizzling sands have passed the sun’s energy on to the retreating sea.

      If the tide is high or coming in fast, follow a course closer to the dunes across the loose, finely ground, whitish granite sand sparkling with mica. In places, veins of feldspar color the sand a hard, heat-absorbing purple. Keep an eye out for piping plovers as you head down the beach. Crane’s is one of three locations in North America where these birds—classified as threatened by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife service—are known to rear young. They lay their eggs directly on the sand, so they need undisturbed stretches of beach. For this reason, The Trustees of Reservations ask beach visitors to help them protect their resident plovers by staying out of sensitive nesting areas.

      Like any beach or natural coastal area, the contours of Crane Beach are constantly changing. Hurricane forces and even gentle afternoon breezes act to reshape the beach. Generations ago, the dunes cast deep shadows all along the peninsula. Today the sands are much flatter, spreading east in a long peninsula. Crosscurrents furrow the flats in a wet, sandy corduroy, concealing razor clams and sea clams.

      Following a trajectory of your own choosing, look to the dunes gaining in magnitude to the right, and you will find a passage to the inner beach. Until this point, wire fencing restricts foot traffic to the seaweed-laced high-water mark and sands lying to the east. Turn here and follow this wide, wire-bordered avenue west into the muffled sands beyond. Knife-sharp blades of beach grass fall in wind-tousled waves over the banks alongside. Without this grass and its binding roots, there would be no dunes.

      The grade of the soft, sandy trails steepens to crest a dune down the path several hundred feet. Striding down the other side in the loose sand, you’ll come to a level junction. Bear left to take the yellow trail south. The air in the still valleys is warmer and softer than the biting salt air blowing off the sea. In this unique microclimate, intriguing plants, such as hardy mushrooms and bayberry bushes, take root.

      After winding along the rim of a bog on the right, the trail takes a serpentine tack southeast, funneling through dune clefts before climbing to a sandy pinnacle overlooking the beach’s southernmost tip. From here you can see Gloucester’s Wingaersheek Beach on the opposite shore, the channel flowing past Conomo Point to Essex Harbor, and the lands surrounding the Crane family’s Great House to the northwest.

      Continue following numbered yellow trail markers as they lead across Castle Neck and deliver you to a spot directly across from Choate Island, or Hog Island, as it is informally known. This beautiful island with a humble name has the distinction of being the birthplace of Senator Rufus Choate, the burial place of Cornelius Crane, and the setting for much of Nicholas Hytner’s film The Crucible. This stretch of beach on a secluded cove receives more visitors by boat than by foot. Occasionally, harbor seals swim ashore here to enjoy some sun or respite from life at sea.

      Leave the yellow trail, and make your own track southeast along the neck’s thin fringe of beach. As you round the peninsula’s tip, the wind will catch you at a different angle. Heading west, you’ll see the beach broaden again. Across from Gloucester’s Halibut Point, mixed flocks of gulls congregate where a foamy seam marks a crosscurrent. As your course bends northwest, Plum Island comes into view, followed by the cottages and the water tower on Great Neck, and finally Crane’s Castle nestled regally on its hill. When fading light or foul weather sends you back to your car, cut back into the loose sand of the seaweed-strewn upland to find the first of the two boardwalks.

      In 1908, amid a rumor that the brother of President Taft had bought “Castle Hill Farm,” Crane Plumbing heir Richard T. Crane purchased the 250 acres made up of bald drumlins and picturesque meadows flush to salt marsh for $125,000. Years later in 1945, 14 years after her husband’s death on his 58th birthday, Florence Crane gave 1,000 acres, including most of Crane Beach and Castle Neck, to The Trustees of Reservations. When she died only four years later, she bequeathed also the Great House and an additional 300 surrounding acres.

      NEARBY