In the Spotlight: Jockey’s Ridge

Monday, 18 April 2011

After our visit to the Wright Brothers National Memorial (blog post here), we made a detour on our way back to the campground to check out Jockey’s Ridge State Park. Located in Nags Head, the 426-acre (~172 hectares) park is home to the tallest living sand dune on the East Coast of the US.

Left: Number 6 on the map shows the location of the park in Nags Head.
Right: map courtesy of the park’s website.

Glimpse of the sand dune for which the park is named (From the overlook).
(see the break in the trees on the right; we’re going to climb to the top via that path.)

The area was designated a state park in 1975 after residents and visitors alike resisted a move to develop the dune. No one knows for sure how the dune came to be named Jockey’s Ridge. One theory is that it was from the early practice of using the base of the dunes to race Spanish mustangs that ran wild in the area while spectators watched from the top of the dune. A more likely theory is that the dune was named for a family with the surname of Jockey (or perhaps, Jackey) who might have owned the land.

we have Success climbing to the top of Jockey's Ridge.

Most geologists believe that this dune, which fluctuates between 90-100 feet (~27-30 m) above sea level, was formed by strong water currents resulting from hurricanes and other strong storms that washed sand from offshore shoals onto the beach. Over many years, the sand was moved inland. Shifting maritime winds continue to blow billions of grains of sand every which way, changing both the shape and the size of the dune.

Winds create constantly shifting waves in the sand.

Any other time, we would have spent a considerable amount of time exploring the dune; maybe even walking the Tracks in the Sand Trail to see the soundside views. Not today. Not only were we tired after a long visit to the Wright Brothers Memorial, but the wind was blowing the sand about quite a bit. And those miniscule grains of sand were all looking to find a new place to settle into — including into the nooks and crannies of our cameras. Sand and electronic sensors don’t play well together, so we stayed just long enough to watch youngsters — and youngsters at heart — running the dune. This looked to be fun, but more than a little dangerous as we watched runners often fall and tumble down the ridge in a way that seemed like an open invitation to a broken neck.

We’re going to skip dune running today; don’t need any broken bones … or worse.

In addition to the crazy antics of the dune runners, the smaller dunes on the other side of the park were filled with newbies learning to hang glide before they tackled the main event — hang gliding over the sound from the top of Jockey’s Ridge.

Finding a not so steep part of the dune, we made our way down to the base to watch the dune runners for a few minutes, before following the trail along the dune back to the overlook where we began our visit.

How they made it down without taking a tumble I'll never know.

I’ll close this post with a quickie video clip from the footage Mui took …