Relay

Sheridan Sansegundo

People complain that the unspoiled East End is shrinking, but for me it recently doubled in size - I discovered the trails system.

I can't believe I was such an idiot. I spent years complaining that there was nowhere to walk on the East End except on the beach or along the road. Rather than inhale diesel fumes or run the risk of being crushed by a Hummer, I even bought one of those hateful treadmills.

Like the fool searching for the glasses perched on her head, I had no suspicion that there was this secret labyrinth of paths right on my doorstep, as far removed from the aggressively keep-out-it's-mine Hamptons as if it were in a different spatial dimension.

It was a friend who was born and grew up here, and who knows all of the wild places like the back of her hand, who drew back the curtain on this parallel world for me.

The first walk I took was through a forest of towering white pines in Northwest Woods. It is usually completely silent, few birds sing, the blanket of pine needles underfoot muffles any footfall, and you could be in the Canadian wilderness. In spring the laurels are a froth of white and the other morning I counted 17 different kinds of mushroom.

Or there's the walk around Chatfield's Hole, an untouched pond where the leaves are just beginning to turn red, or the broad path through Barcelona which leads to a series of marshy lagoons where you seldom fail to see a heron or an egret.

A walk near Old Northwest Road leads past a mysterious pond full of bullfrogs, a stand of ancient trees that have split and cracked as if struck by lightning, and a huge glacial boulder big enough for a large family to picnic on. Sometimes a deer will stop in its flight and look at you, but you seldom meet another person.

In Montauk there's a walk that could be the Welsh moorlands of my childhood and others that lead along abandoned logging paths past fallen houses and foreign plants that mark what must once have been gardens.

The best walk so far is at Point Woods, Montauk, where the path winds down through constantly changing woods - a dark grove of contorted mountain laurel gives way to glades of ferns under beech trees, copses of twisty shad bushes lead to streams with banks of vivid green sphagnum moss, and a fruity smell signals wild grapes growing overhead.

It's a wild place and one where you would be lost in seconds without a knowledgeable guide. Until recently, that is. Which brings me finally to the point of this column - the East Hampton Trails Preservation Society - which is reclaiming, blazing, and maintaining our trails.

On a recent visit to Point Woods we found the trail discreetly marked and, after half-an-hour's brisk walking, found sturdy bridges crossing the usually mucky wetland streams. The society's volunteers had hauled two-by-fours, saws, and cans of paint for miles through the woods. They're invisible, we never see them, but they work wonders.

The next week I was able to take some friends to Point Woods and introduce them to the trails system, too. And when I got home after a perfect afternoon I sent off my measly best-value-you-ever-heard-of $15 to become a member.

One day the Paumanok Path, a connecting system of trails, will run all the way from Rocky Point to Montauk Point - the East Hampton section of it is already finished and will be inaugurated on Oct. 17.

With so much wilderness lost to development, the trails are truly a gift beyond price.

Sheridan Sansegundo is The Star's arts editor.