Though smaller in size than the visitor center at Salt Pond, the Marconi Area, (508) 349-3785, is the Cape Cod National Seashore Headquarters. Located just off U.S. Rt. 6 in Wellfleet, the Marconi building is not really a visitor center, but rather houses the administrative offices of the National Seashore. There isn't a lot to do in the building, though the lobby has a few exhibits, and you can talk to a park historian and naturalist.

A second visitor center, the Province Lands Visitor Center, (508) 487-1256, Race Point Road in Provincetown, provides many of the same offerings found at the Salt Pond Visitor Center. It features exhibits on native flora and fauna, plus information on the history of the fishing industry. A park ranger is always on hand to answer your questions and offer guidance. A small theater shows orientation films and there are outdoor programs similar to those at Salt Pond.

As mentioned, one of the highlights at the Salt Pond Visitor Center is the spectacular view of Nauset Marsh from the lobby. At the Province Lands Visitor Center, the highlight is an upper viewing deck that gives you an extended view of the rolling moors, dunes and ocean to the east, and views of Cape Cod Bay with its fabulous sunsets to the west.

Before you hit the beaches, take a walk along any one of the 11 selfguiding trails at the Cape Cod National Seashore. The Nauset Marsh Trail along the Salt Pond is a good place to start. Adjacent to the Salt Pond Visitor Center, this trail winds along the edge of Salt Pond and Nauset Marsh, crosses fields, and returns to the visitor center. There are spectacular views along the way. The area is a full-scale nursery for oceanic fish, shellfish, and microscopic plankton. Because of this, its serves as an important habitat along the Atlantic flyways for shorebirds, wading birds, and waterfowl. Traveling inland along this mile-long path from the marsh, the landscape changes rapidly into an area of red cedar, low-lying juniper, and aromatic bayberry. The red cedars (actually junipers) are sun-loving trees, quick to take over the plowed fields and barren grounds of the Cape. Until the early 1930's, a private golf course was in this area, complete with sand traps, open fairways, and putting greens. Some evidence of the golf course can still be seen amid the changing landscape.

The CCNS has done an exemplary job when it comes to having wheelchair-accessible facilities. Several of its nature paths are wheelchair accessible, and the Buttonbush Trail, also at the visitor center in Eastham, is one of them. An easy quarter-mile loop path that connects to the Nauset Trail, it has a guide rope and text panels in both Braille and large lettering along its route. As you walk along a wooded boardwalk that takes you through a freshwater environment, listen to the sounds of the many bird species that call this habitat home. Since the Buttonbush Trail has been designed to encourage multiple sensory experiences, it has become popular with a wide variety of park users. It is used routinely by full-sighted educational and family groups, who often follow the guide rope in pairs of two--with one person blindfolded and the other reading the text on the panels out loud.

The Seashore has a number of other short, self-guiding nature trails. One of our favorite walking paths is at Fort Hill in Eastham. The Fort Hill Trail is a 1½-mile series of connected pathways that lead through cedar/oak forests, along the edge of Nauset Marsh, and then across fields that lead back to the starting point opposite the Penniman House, named for Captain and Mrs. Edward Penniman, a prominent whaling family in the 19th century, whose house is now a museum. You can start your walk at the entrance to the three-quarter-mile Red Swamp Trail, which adjoins the Fort Hill Trail located across from the Penniman House. Walk down the path and loop through the heart of the swamp on a boardwalk, which is wheelchair accessible. Continue on to the Skiff Hill shelter where an interpretive sign will tell the story of Indian Rock, which the Wampanoag Indians supposedly used to sharpen their tools. Here stretching out before you is Nauset Marsh, a large salt marsh, important because it produces food for ocean fish, birds, and other wildlife. Directly below you, aquaculture flats are marked by buoys in the channel. Proceed along the path overlooking the marsh, through fields that once produced crops, to the Fort Hill overlook. Again, Nauset Marsh lies before you, and beyond that, the barrier beach protecting the shoreline from the Atlantic Ocean.

To the right is the entrance to Orleans Town Cove. Orleans is that spit of land across the water to the right. Coast Guard Beach and the old Coast Guard Headquarters are to the left in the distance high on a bluff overlooking the ocean.

Another favorite ramble, as you head up the coast, is the Atlantic White Cedar Swamp Trail in Wellfleet, just north of Marconi Beach. When you arrive at the entrance to the Marconi area, follow the trailhead north to the Marconi Station Site and not south towards the Marconi Beach parking lot. The 1½-mile trail is heaven for naturalists as it takes you through varying environments of scrubland, mixed oaks, and pitch pine perfect for birding, and for diversity, there is nothing like this trail anywhere on Cape Cod as it descends through woodland and leads to a boardwalk that loops through the Atlantic White Cedar Swamp. The trail returns via the historic "Wireless Road" to the starting location.

Further up the coast is the Pilgrim Spring Trail, an easy three-quarter-mile walk that provides yet another rewarding outdoor experience through bayberry and blueberry woodlands to a hillside with scenic views across the moors and dunes to the sea. Pilgrim Spring Trail is a short distance off U.S. Rt. 6 in the Pilgrim Heights area of North Truro and is well marked. There is an interpretive site that features illustrations and maps detailing the story of the Pilgrim Spring, which you will be able to find on the trail--the water is clear and pristine and you can cup your hand and take a drink, just as the Pilgrims did 380 or so years ago.

The 1-mile Beech Forest Trail in Provincetown circles a freshwater pond laden with water lilies and waterfowl, through American beech trees, sheep laurel, yellow and gray birch, and swamp azalea. A loop to this trail takes walkers through the heart of a beautiful beech forest, which is particularly beautiful in the fall, but you can walk this trail any time of the year and have a wonderful experience. The trail is located just off Route 6 on Race Point Road in the Province Lands.