e x p l o r e n a n t u c k e t
with Peter B. Brace

WALK FREE ON YOUR OWN...FOR NOW

Hold on. Before you put on your hiking boots and strap on your Camelback, I have something I want tell you.

This is the end of my Explore Nantucket series in The Independent for the time being. Last fall, I almost ended it because I thought I'd walked the entire island, but then I discovered the Middle Moors map produced by the Nantucket Conservation Foundation.

Flabbergasted that there were more trails to hike that I didn't know about on Nantucket, I mined about eight hikes out of that map. I picked up a few stragglers outside its perimeter and went on a few more that didn't make the cut for my book, "Walking Nantucket," for various reasons. I also did several that required the hiker to get there by kayak.

But now I find myself literally scouring the island for places to walk that I haven't already written about. If there's anyone out there who's walked every walk in my book and every route in this series from when it began in May 2005 to now who can think of a hike on the island that's on conservation or town property that I haven't written about, I'd love to know about it.

If I get enough of them by next spring, then I'll certainly jumpstart the series and run a few more hikes. However, I am thoroughly done with writing about where to kayak. Although I didn't delve into trips out to Tuckernuck, Muskeget and Martha's Vineyard for the obvious reason of required paddling expertise, I think I've covered every conceivable route on the island's harbors and ponds, and the safer parts of part of Nantucket Sound near the island.

I've also mountain-biked every inch of this island and written about those excursions. I know there are those of you who use the walks in this series and those in my book as trails to bike on, so I really don't see the point in writing about these biking routes anymore because you mountain bikers out there probably know the island better than I do.

What I plan to do this winter is write a new walking book for the island and try to pack into it all the walks I had to cut out of "Walking Nantucket" and those from my Explore Nantucket series. Without giving too much away, I want to try to retain the spirit of the first book of walks while broadening the information in each walk. Exactly what that will be will be revealed in the next book should it actually get published.

Since I love to write and be outdoors, I'm hoping my enthusiasm is contagious enough to infect my publisher with the desire to do another one with me. Actually, I think she's already caught the disease.

I want to thank those who helped make Explore Nantucket a reality starting with Don Costanzo, my editor and publisher, for believing in this series and giving me the freedom to write an outdoor column along with the rest of my reporting duties. Also, the island's conservation organizations, specifically, Allen Reinhard and Jim Lentowski from the Nantucket Conservation Foundation, Bruce Perry from the Nantucket Islands Land Bank and Steve Nicolle from the Trustees of Reservations. And of course, I can't end this column without thanking my own personal, self-appointed publicist, John McLaughlin, who, nearly every chance he gets in a public setting, touts "Walking Nantucket," therefore drawing attention to the series as well. Thanks, John.

Thank you to those who followed this series from start to finish and who contacted me with suggested hikes, corrections and critiques of the routes I wrote about. If anyone missed a walk in the paper and you would like me to make a copy of it and email it to you, please either call me at The Independent at 228-1654 or email me at coskataheaven@ earthlink.net.

Thanks for reading my stuff!

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