Hiking is such a part of my daily routine I hadn’t realized that last week was my six month anniversary. The toughest part now is deciding where to go. My nephew was wondering if I would run out of trails to hike. Cape Cod has over 100 named trails in it’s 15 towns. February 18 was the first time I did a trail other than Callery- Darling. I have done 23 since then, so I should be ok for a while. I can’t do a different trail everyday due to such detours like ; weather, work, travel and now gas prices. Most days I decide where to go before I leave the house in the morning. Other days I’m indecisive and just start driving. The other day was one of those days. I had a meeting so I was later than usual. I had a late breakfast and they served a sandwich at the meeting so I was looking for an easy walk. I decided on Corporation beach and headed down Rte 28 and headed for Old Bass River Rd. I passed Indian Lands and then John Kelley (haven’t done that one yet}. Just before I got to Rte 6A I saw Hokum Rock Rd and remembered reading and hearing about the great Hokum Rock.
The parking area is on the south side of the street and has enough room for maybe 8-10 cars. There is one big set of rocks right by the parking area. I thought it was just another big rock. The way I read it was Hokum Rock was a huge rock people climbed. So I headed off into the woods. The trail led to an open sandy area, not sure where to go I went left and stayed to the right seeing another trail not too far ahead. The narrow trail was unmarked and split right away. I went to the left still having no idea where I was going. That would be the theme of the day. I decided right away I would try to stay on the trail I was on. Good thing because there were so many splits I can’t remember how many. Some split in two, some three. Not only that but a bunch of steep hills too. So much for my easy walk - Ha Ha !!
When I am hiking a trail like this without any markers an old Happy Hour song always comes to mind. The name of the song is “Charlie on the MTA’, my version is--will he ever return, no he’ll never return and his fate is still unknown, he may hike forever on the trails of Cape Cod, he’s the man who’ll never return.
I was going to turn around after 2 miles if I didn’t come to any sort of ending. I saw a pond up ahead and the trail I was on actually led down a steep hill right to it and had two people fishing in the water on the other side. I checked the pedometer and it was 1.7 miles from where I started. Good enough !! By then I had figured out that Hokum Rock was the one I saw at the beginning. I took a couple of pictures, turned around walked up the very steep hill, back into the woods and stayed on the same trail until I got back to the rock. I was very happy I was smart enough to stay on the same path the whole way. My curiosity might bring me back, but if I do I will make sure I have a compass. Hokum Rock and Plymouth Rock have one thing in common, I thought both would be much bigger !!
Ratings 1- the cellar 2- shoddy 3- tolerable 4- worthy 5- wicked good
Accessibility - 5 2nd left off Old Bass River Road from 6A in Dennis
Parking - 4 - Better than most
Length- 5 - looks like the trails go all over
Degree of Difficulty- 3 - some very steep hills
Extras- 2- Beaches not to far,
Trail Markings- 1 - the worst by far, especially with so many choices
Trail Maintenance- 2 - a lot of junk around
Variation - 5- too much since they aren’t marked
Scenic - 2- The rock
Worth Returning - 3 - Maybe out of curiosity
Beach - no
Facilities - no
Rating 32 out of 50
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