Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center to Rodanthe Beach Access, Mountains to Sea Trail, Segment 18, miles 50.6 to 59.4

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
12/24/2021	9.2 miles	4 hours 22 minutes	29'	2.5 mph	592.1

Parking: Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center, Rodanthe Beach Access

Maps:

• Google Maps and Gaia GPS app
• Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge map
• Mountains to Sea Trail Guide (really necessary as Gaia doesn't show all of the trail)

Directions:

• See MST guide for more specific directions. Start at Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center. Cross street to reach beach by the ocean. Turn right on the beach and walk to the Rodanthe Beach Access parking area.

A warmer windy day. I had printed out a map of the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge. The problem was that there is a 1/2 mile section of the MST that goes through the refuge where dogs aren't allowed. The refuge goes for several miles and has limited parking. After studying the MST guide & Gaia and the refuge map, I figured out an alternative.  Dogs are allowed on the beach next to the ocean for the length of the refuge. There are a couple of short trails on the opposite side of the highway (i.e. the side the visitor center is on) where dogs aren't allowed. The MST mostly follows the ocean but does include one of the short trails. So, I figured as long as we limited our hiking to the beach, we should be able to hike without skipping a section. The second issue I saw was that the visitor center listed 2-hour maximum parking. So, I went into the visitor center and asked if they were familiar with the MST. One of the volunteers was. I double checked that my alternate route worked, and he said that was fine - dogs are allowed on the ocean side of the island, as long as they are on leash. And they said they'd make sure my car wouldn't get towed (maybe they were thinking I was leaving my car overnight?). So, everything worked out well.

We kept Krumm on leash all day. He was disappointed, but I realize the importance of doing so. I think more shore birds are actually on the other side of the highway. I find it interesting that they have a nature preserve, but then a few miles away, there is hunting access from the highway (non-ocean side). I assume they hunt ducks and geese, but I'm not sure. This section of the beach had many shells. I do find it interesting that you can go for a mile on the beach with very few shells, and then have a section with abundant shells. Why is that? I found a number of conch shells in this section. I picked up a couple to try sketching them. We had the beach mostly to ourselves, other than a ton of birds.

As we approached Rodanthe, we started seeing rental houses on the beach - in the ocean. We had to either walk underneath the houses or behind them, as the ocean was lapping on their beams. So many million dollar houses - yet they seem like such a bad investment due to climate change.