Cape Henlopen State Park

Gordons Pond

A shallow salt pond sitting behind the dune line at the southern end of Cape Henlopen State Park, and the 3.2-mile trail that runs along the edge of it — probably the best easy walk on the Delaware coast.

The pond was made by people who wanted salt

Gordons Pond looks like a natural lagoon. It is not, entirely.

European settlers here cut channels across the beach and dunes so that high tides would flood sand-bottomed flats inside hand-shoveled dikes. The sun did the first half of the work, concentrating the trapped seawater. Then they boiled the brine down in cast-iron pots over driftwood fires until what was left was salt — which, before refrigeration, was how you kept a winter's meat and fish from spoiling.

The water level is still managed today, by Delaware's mosquito control section, through two gates at the northwest and southwest corners — balancing mosquito control against waterfowl, shorebirds, fish, crustaceans and the plants along the shoreline. When the pond looks unusually high or low, that is usually why.

The trail

The boardwalk section was built with decking that lets light through to the marsh underneath, and there are two observation overlooks along it. Those are the spots worth stopping at: you get the salt marsh on one side and the dune line between you and the ocean on the other, and in migration season the pond can be covered in birds.

The trail replaced an older primitive path that crossed the dune fields and was only usable part of the year.

Can you ride all the way from Lewes to Rehoboth?

Nearly. Not entirely off-road.

The other half of the route is the Junction and Breakwater Trail, a crushed-stone rail-trail on a former Penn Central railroad bed, about six miles, with trailheads on Kings Highway in Lewes and Hebron Road off Route 1 in Rehoboth.

Put together with the Gordons Pond Trail, Delaware describes the whole thing as a circuit of roughly 15 to 18 miles depending on which way you go — but the state's own wording is honest about the catch: the circuit includes surface roads in Lewes and Rehoboth Beach. There is no continuous protected path from one town to the other. Plan for some time on pavement with traffic.