Throughout the world, many people begin the New Year with a walk, preferably in a natural setting. A stepson living in Kyoto, Japan hikes up a nearby mountain at sunrise on the first day of the year – a tradition that’s considered a way to leave the old year behind and begin anew.
Closer to home, Anne Arundel County residents can start the New Year off on the right foot with a “First Day Hike” on January 1st at one of 47 parks located in Anne Arundel County. Among the best known are 236-acre Downs Park off the Chesapeake Bay in Pasadena, 90-acre Ft. Smallwood Park at the confluence of the Patapsco River and Rock Creek, 288-acre Kinder Farm Park in Millersville and 340-acre Quiet Waters Park in Annapolis.
One of our favorite parks, from both a historic and natural resources conservation perspective, is Greenbury Point at the mouth of the Severn River in Annapolis which is managed by the U.S. Navy. Situated on a scenic 231-acre peninsula, the park has multiple points of interest with equal appeal for historians, hikers, nature lovers, birders, or dog walkers – so many things to see that a visitor hardly knows where to start.
Greenbury Point trails are currently open from 6 am to 6 pm but, if like me, New Year’s Day brunch precludes an early start, keep in mind that darkness falls early these days.
A fan of water views, I like to start off across a field opposite the Nature Center parking lot to Hooper’s High Road which leads to a marina that is closed to the public. However, an area of shoreline to the right of the marina provides an amazing view across the Upper Chesapeake Bay to the Bay Bridge.
Heading back up Hooper High Road, one comes to the building formerly known as Hooper High School. An outgrowth of the Naval Academy Primary School in the late 1940’s, Hooper High educated the teenaged children of Naval Academy faculty and staff. As Greenbury Point is an official training hub for the Naval Academy, older facilities no longer in operation, like Hooper High, were converted for use by military and DOD civilian personnel.
If there’s time, visitors can explore Timberdoodle Trail to the right which meanders through wet woodlands or the equally woodsy Pipsissewa Trail to the left.
Back at the Nature Center (open only on Thursdays) there are other foot trails including the Poets Nature Trail and several picturesque birdhouses.
Greenbury Point Nature Center 
One of the nature center birdhouses.
For canines and their human companions, Greenbury Point is one immense dog park though dogs are required to be leashed as can be seen by the photo below.
For dog owners with limited time, there is also a fenced-in Dog Park by the Nature Center.
Visitors looking for a relaxing, refreshing, and inspiring New Year’s Day walk, however, will want to take in the Bobwhite Trail and adjoining Tower Access Roads where both parkland and water views are spectacular. Signs on the gate warn that, at various times, the land behind the gates is a Live Firing Range for Naval Academy Training Exercises.
The mix of scrub and swamp vegetation along the winding Bobwhite Trail is home to more than 165 species of birds with additional waterfowl along the shorelines. To name just a few, they include year-round species like the Canada Goose, Mallard, Double-crested Cormorant, Great Blue Heron, Great Black-backed Gull as well as the Downy Woodpecker, Carolina Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Carolina Wren, Eastern Bluebird and American Goldfinch.
Looming up in the distance are Greenbury Point’s iconic 800-foot-high radio towers. The first towers were erected during World War I but most thereafter. There were eventually nearly 40 towers, only three of which still exist. The rest, including one nearly a quarter mile high, were torn down in 1999. The huge antennas were used for radio transmissions to U.S. Navy ships and submarines world-wide with very low frequency transmissions for the nuclear submarine force as the primary mission for the antenna farm up to 1994.
Close to the towers looms the shoreline.
Moving beneath one tower and on to the next, the Chesapeake Bay lies just ahead.
Continuing past the towers, as many as six or eight ships can often be seen in a long line on the Chesapeake Bay as they wait to move into the Baltimore harbor……….including this Grimaldi Lines freighter.
Walking on, one will soon be able to look across the water at the Annapolis skyline with its distinctive Capital dome.
Hikers can choose to continue following the Tower Access Road back to Bobwhite Trail or can shortcut across a connecting trail that’s sort of a switchback getting you more quickly to the gate from which you entered.
Along the way, there’s an opportunity to rest on a bench and contemplate what lies ahead for us in 2022. Let’s hope our First Day Hikes, wherever they take us, lead to better times in the New Year.
For information on the Greenbury Point Hiking Trail visit Greenbury Point Trail – Maryland | AllTrails. For birders, there is a great deal of information at Greenbury Point – Birders Guide to Maryland and DC (birdersguidemddc.org) .
My day after New Year’s Day yielded no persimmons but some black walnuts. Black walnuts are wonderful but very hard to crack. You are lucky to find persimmons. I hear they’re delicious prepared properly. I’ve found them before but didn’t quite know what to do with them. On the other hand, I’m sure climbing into a T-6 or T-34 suits you to a T.