Corn Neck Rd, New Shoreham, RI (Block Island) – Trail to North Lighthouse and back by beach ~ 5.28 miles and 3hrs 40 mins (lots of stops to enjoy the view)

This is an easy and gorgeous trail. A note to other walkers: if you walk to trail head from the ferry, walk the trail and then walk back to the ferry it is ~ 15 miles.

The trail is off of Corn Neck Road. There is a marker on the left hand side that leads you down a dirt road that will lead you to a parking lot and the start of the trail. The trail is a mix of dirt and grassy paths.

It is nothing but beautiful essentially the entrie way. The path winds in and out of tree coverage and then about .25 miles to .33 miles there is a fork in the path — left leads you to the bluffs and right takes you to a beach. We took the left.

We followed the path to head North. There are several paths to follow which I later learned are referred to as the maze. The path we followed kept us close to the bluffs edge with views of the ocean and grassy fields the entire way. The trail eventually ends at the street.

We continued to walk the road north to Settler’s Rock. From here we walked the beach. We spotted seals in the water and spent some time watching them and then continued to the dirt path that took us to the North Lighthouse.

There were more trails to follow that would have taken us up to the tip of the island, however we noticed that many seagulls were nesting throughout the dunes, and we respectfully let them be.

We headed back to the road and turned back onto Clay Head Nature Trail, however this time we went to the beach and followed the coast all the way back. It was so cool to see the bluffs up close after admiring them from a distance. We encountered many seals along the way floating and swimming in the water. They seemed just as taken with us as we were with them, but they ignored my invitations to come see us.

We found so many many amazing rocks and filled our back packs. Admittedly the haul was a bit heavy, but, totally worth it.

We took the connector that led back to the trail ( the fork we opted to go left on before), and that led us back to where we started.

Overall a fabulous trail and I would definitely do it again.

Adventurers included: Jes and Mike