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The Assateague Island Bike Path is a paved path of almost five miles. It links the National Park Service visitor center on the Maryland mainland with the Maryland district of Assateague Island National Seashore. The path crosses Sinepuxent Bay on its own bridge beside the Verrazano Bridge. It passes the entrance to Assateague State Park, then follows Bayberry Drive south behind the dunes, separated from the road the whole way. The grade is dead flat. Three short nature trails open off the route, through salt marsh, maritime forest, and dunes, and visitors leave bicycles at each trailhead to walk them. Wild horses often wander near the road.
Assateague Island Bike Path
Your comfort. Prognosticated.
-Cory
In a typical year the Assateague Island Bike Path has about 81 to 136 days of excellent weather for popular activities such as hiking, dog walking, running, e-biking, biking, birding, and walking, with April, May, and October the best months.
Hourly comfort scores for the next 15 days of weather, tuned to your activity and your own thresholds.
Plan your visit to this trail. Get the best windows for a comfortable outing.
Enjoy the Assateague Island Bike Path!
There is too little deciduous tree cover along the Assateague Island Bike Path to measure a peak color window. The trail has 3% deciduous coverage, with the majority being red maple, sweetgum, and American holly.
Ferries carried visitors to the Maryland end of Assateague until the Verrazano Bridge opened in 1964. The island had taken its present shape three decades earlier. In August 1933, a storm cut an inlet at Ocean City and split Assateague from the land to the north. In the 1950s, developers platted a resort town called Ocean Beach on the Maryland side. They sold lots and paved Baltimore Boulevard as its main street. They also built up a high foredune along the ocean. The Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962 wrecked the few buildings and roads. The damage showed the island was too unstable for a town, and the federal government bought the land. Maryland had already set aside Assateague State Park in 1956, and the state still runs two miles of the island. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the law creating Assateague Island National Seashore on September 21, 1965. No railroad ever ran here. The path follows the park roads instead. A safety study later found that walkers and cyclists needed their own crossing of Sinepuxent Bay. A separate bridge was built beside the Verrazano Bridge, and it won a federal Excellence in Highway Design award in 1998. A piece of old Baltimore Boulevard still lies along the Life of the Dunes Trail at the path's southern end.
Life of the Marsh TrailLife of the Forest TrailLife of the Dunes Trail
