Sand is everywhere. It’s in my shoes, stuck to my sweaty T-shirt, in my backpack. A gentle breeze tosses a few grains onto the banana I’ve just peeled and more blows past my legs, destined for the dunes behind me. But it doesn’t obscure the grin on my face as I survey my surroundings: a virtually empty beach, no boardwalk, no rides, no screaming kids. The only signs of life are a lone surf fisherman, a few raucous flocks of seabirds, and hoof prints, belonging to some world-famous wild ponies.

My usual beach experience involves a lounge chair, a pulpy novel, a cooler, and summer crowds. But on this trip, we’ve donned hiking boots and packs to leave the radios, boogie boards, and day-trippers behind.

I grew up thousands of miles from the Eastern Shore, but thanks to Marguerite Henry’s Misty books, I longed to visit Assateague Island as a girl, though my parents would never agree to my plan to house a wild horse in their suburban backyard. It wasn’t until I moved to this coast that I discovered that there’s much more to Assateague than ponies. It’s also the perfect place for human visitors to go a little wild.

Though the entrance to the island is only eight miles south of the apartment blocks of Ocean City, Assateague’s thirty-seven-mile long strip of beach, sandwiched between the pounding ocean waves and the calmer waters of the Sinepuxent and Chincoteague bays, is one of the most untamed areas on the Atlantic coast. But this place is no secret hideaway. The island is home to a National Seashore, a Maryland state park, and a National Wildlife Refuge, and about a million people visit its beaches each year. That means planning ahead to get away from the masses. But it doesn’t take much more than some camping gear, a big bottle of sunscreen, and two feet (though a kayak can help a camper paddle further afield). So after watching the forecast for a sunny weekend, my group of five pulls up at the ranger station, eager to start out on a hike into the beachy backcountry. 

Unlike the regular campsites, backcountry sites can’t be reserved, so arriving early is key. On less crowded days, like this off-season weekend, obtaining a permit is easy—the hard part is planning how to get our tents, sleeping bags, clothes, food, firewood, camp stove, and many gallons of water four miles down the beach using only human power.

But we have a couple of ringers in our midst: kayakers. The guys are willing to brave the waves, so we promptly dump all the heavy stuff at their feet. “This doesn’t look like a good deal for us,” my boyfriend says with a twisted grin. “Don’t forget the firewood,” I call as we set out down the beach.

Four miles of walking on squishy sand can be a little hard on the legs, but with a few breaks, we manage not to make it too taxing. Hikers share the beach with four-wheel-drive vehicles and fishermen, but it’s easy to avoid the occasional truck by walking near the water, and there’s plenty to see. We spot dolphins’ fins breaking the surface as they swim up the coast and pelicans flying in their wake, their wings almost skimming the water’s surface. There isn’t a building in sight, though the modern world still lurks with the few container ships sailing far offshore.

A small brown sign points the way into the campsite, which can accommodate up to thirty people. So far, we have it to ourselves. I get the bright idea to pitch the tents toward the rear of the camp for privacy and as a shield from the wind. As we wearily slip off our packs and start to unload, we quickly realize why that might not be the best plan. For there is only one truly legendary creature on Assateague, and it isn’t a horse. It’s a tiny, bloodsucking, six-legged vampire, better known as the mosquito. The gentle breezes rolling off the ocean keep the little buzzers in check, but step behind the dunes and any warm-blooded creature stirs them up in swarms. It takes a few moments for the mozzies and no-see-ums to zero in on our exact location, but within five minutes, we are battling a full-scale attack, and I find myself in a particularly vulnerable position—trapped in the port-a-john.

Primitive toilets are neither a surprise, nor a problem, but I didn’t bet on having to bug spray my derrière. My temporary plastic prison is a bug bonanza, and I immediately realize that it’s time to break out. Thankfully, no bemused fishermen or wild ponies are on hand to watch my dancing, slapping, half-dressed search for our lone container of insect repellent. “We can’t.  Sleep. Here.” I screech as I swat bugs.

“What?” says my friend Jillian, as she starts her own swatting display. “Oh.”

Immediately, the girls grab our disorganized piles of tent stakes and sleeping bags and promptly deposit them on the breezy site nearest the beach. One liberal dousing of body, clothes, and shoes in Jungle Juice, and we’re able to stop waving the mosquitoes away and start thinking about dinner.

But our special kayak delivery service hasn’t arrived yet. Worried, I decide to walk back down the beach in search of the sea-going section of the group. Just as darkness starts to fall and I start to think about how to wave down a non-existent Coast Guard cutter, I come upon the two guys on foot. Sick of getting rolled by the waves, they had just pulled up and were going to walk the rest of the way in the dark, leaving the kayaks past the high tide line for retrieval in the morning. We grab enough supplies for the night, quit the treacherous small craft, and run back to start cooking up a few hot dogs and foil-wrapped corn-on-the-cob.

As the last of the light fades behind the dunes and the air chills, the real magic of this wild isle reveals itself. The insects seem to evaporate, and I lie back in the sand, tear my eyes away from the flickering flames of our small beach bonfire, and look up to a sight that’s rarely seen around the mammoth cities of our east coast megalopolis—a sky bursting with stars. Out at our primitive campsite, there’s not a streetlight to be seen, and there’s no orange glow of city lights on the ocean’s vast horizon. As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I see the huge swath of the Milky Way above me, and the fire dies before I finally depart the quiet beach for my tent.

The next morning, we decide to beat a partial retreat from the great outdoors for a more conventional camping experience for our second night in the park. As we park near our sandy walk-in site, set back behind the row of dunes closest to the waves, we can already see that this will be a very different evening. These sites are booked solid, and most of our new neighbors have huge shade tents, coolers, charcoal, and dogs. But we fit right in, since today we’re leaving the “take only photos, leave only footprints” philosophy grievously behind, and are jumping into a beach-ready SUV.

If you have four-wheel drive, you don’t have to rely on your legs or sub-standard paddling ability to see the more remote sections of the island. An annual over-sand vehicle permit, or OSV, allows anyone to take a four-wheel-drive car or truck onto the sand, for surf fishing or general exploring. But all drivers must be prepared with equipment to dig their vehicles out of the sand—the rangers won’t issue an OSV license to any driver unless they can prove he’s carrying a tow rope, a shovel, and a jack, and if you get stuck, they won’t pull you out. After we let some air out of our tires and power onto the sand, I can see why. Deep tire tracks help guide the way along the beach (driving on or behind the dunes is forbidden), but more adventurous four-wheeling quickly becomes slippery and bumpy. I take a look at my partner in crime, who is grinning from ear to ear as he throws the steering wheel from side to side to take us into another track and get us closer to the water. I grab the “oh no” handle above my head and press on my imaginary brake—he actually shouts “Whoo-hoo!” and steps on the gas. As we bounce past a familiar brown sign, comments start to float up from the backseat.

“Isn’t that where we slept last night?”

“Yeah, there’s our campsite. Why didn’t we just DRIVE here?”

Though my legs, back, and bug-bitten body might agree, that option is against the rules (and, I suppose, the spirit) for backcountry camping on the island. (Rangers who catch people offloading gear to the remote sites, or sleeping in their cars, can eject them from the park.)

We bump along as far as we can to the fence dividing Maryland from Virginia, as well as the northern pony herd from their southern relatives. Human visitors can continue through to Virginia on foot, but the horses’ movements are controlled to keep their numbers down. We jump out, cross into the South, and take a few pictures with the fence and the sandy truck behind us.

As the afternoon sun wanes, the prospect of some more sophisticated campfire cuisine—beach bonfire-cooked marinated chicken and some cold beer from the cooler—lures us back to the car for the return drive to our campsite. But when we hit the paved road, we run straight into a minor traffic jam, caused by a different type of rubbernecking. A large group of ponies are feeding by the side of the road, and a group of people near me are out of their cars and excitedly gesturing at them.

“We’ve found our family,” cries a woman, a huge smile on her face. When I ask her what she means, the woman tells me a story worthy of Marguerite Henry herself. Years ago, she “adopted” a foster horse called Chance for her grandson, part of a program which helps fund the herd’s maintenance. She’s brought a wrinkled computer printout of the horse’s picture with her to the island, and has just spotted the stallion, along with his mare and foal—the first time she’s ever seen him in person. Her absent grandson, about to be deployed to Iraq for a second tour of duty, would get a picture to take with him, a symbol of the freedom of home. I smile with her. Whether human or horse, Assateague’s wild spirit is infectious and continues to inspire the multitudes that come to play on her shores.

Sara Edelson writes from Washington, D.C. 

in memoriam

In Nature’s Corner

If you enjoy Assateague’s windswept beaches and unspoiled wildness, you can thank “human dynamo” Judith Johnson.

Like the winds and tides of her favorite place, Assateague Island, Judith Colt Johnson was a force of nature. For nearly a quarter of a century, until her death last February at the age of ninety-one, the environmental advocate from Towson led the fight to preserve Assateague’s wild, solitary seashore from development.

Johnson began her activism at the behest of her young son, Reid, after they took a trip to Assateague together in the 1960s. He remembers her reaction on learning of plans to “improve” the pristine barrier island with a thirty-mile highway, a 14,000-car parking lot, motels, and fast-food restaurants. “This is horrible. This is wrong,” he recalls his mother declaring. “Someone has to stop this.” She did.

As the founding chairperson of the Committee to Preserve Assateague Island, Inc.—an organization that grew to more than a thousand members, now known as Assateague Coastal Trust—Johnson began her campaign with little direct experience in politics or science. In fact, her most recent position had been managing the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, where she was the first woman in the country to serve in such a role. But she soon proved remarkably effective at directing fellow conservationists.

Throughout the early ‘70s, Johnson collected allies by the hundreds, organizing an onslaught of letters to government officials. The U.S. Department of the Interior’s official account of the Assateague controversy tersely described her as “a woman of exceptional persuasiveness and persistence.” Ajax Eastman, a close associate and former president of the Maryland Conservation Council, remembers her as “a human dynamo. I was continually amazed by her ability to organize, inspire, and motivate people.”

In 1976, Congress voted to rescind plans for the highway and further commercial development on Assateague. With that long-sought victory in hand, Johnson and her colleagues pressed on. They defeated a proposed sewage pipeline that would have endangered the piping plover, and won restrictions on the all-terrain vehicles that threatened the birds’ habitat.

CEOs, attorneys, and refuge managers—Johnson lobbied them all. “She was adept at working with politicos at every level—everyone from the mayor of Ocean City to the Army Corps of Engineers,” recalls author and former Sun columnist Tom Horton. “She really held the Corps’ feet to the fire on issues like jetties and beach management.”

Yet her personal charm informed every encounter. “She had tremendous energy, but she was easy to be around,” says Horton. “Judy always had a good time—and you did, too, if you were with her. She was a textbook example of how to be an effective advocate.” —Carol Denny

Contacts

Assateague State Park is Maryland’s only ocean state park. Day use is $3 or $4 for non-residents. Campsite fees run $30 a night, and the season runs from May through October. For more information, visit http://www.dnr.state.md.us/publiclands/ eastern/assateague.html.

• Admission on foot or by bicycle is $3 or $10 per vehicle for 7 days. The pass works for both the Maryland and Virginia sides of the island.

• Camping info, maps, and general information about Assateague National Seashore can be found at http://www.nps.gov/asis.

• Campground reservations are required April 15 through October 15, and on a first-come, first-served basis the rest of the year. For reservations, call 877-444-6777 or visit at http://www.recreation.gov.

• Campsites are $20 per night, or $5 for backcountry permits.

• There are six backcountry campsites accessible at Assateague National Seashore, four on the bay side, two on the ocean side. Distances to these campsites range from 3 to 14 miles from the parking lots. Bay-side sites are forested and not recommended during mosquito season. Ocean-side sites are in the open, inner dunes. Registration and permits are required, and must be displayed on tents.

• OSV permits cost $70 for one year. Rangers will inspect cars and trucks for readiness to drive on the sand. Details can be found at http://www.nps.gov/asis/plan- yourvisit/osv.htm