Parking
Ryder Beach lot on Ryder Beach Road, listed with 32 spaces. A Truro beach parking sticker is required in season; a portable toilet is listed in season. The Town lists no food vendor.
Overview
About Ryder Beach Loop
Why go
- Railway grade, bay shoreline, and sandy roads give the loop three distinct stretches.
- Little climbing and a typical walk of about 1½ hours.
Heads up
- The railbed, beach, and sand-road transitions are not marked as one trail.
- A Truro beach parking sticker is required in season.
Map & elevation
The route
Plan your hike
Before you go
Parking
Safety
1 active Cape Cod alert
- CautionSharks active in park waters through OctoberSharks are active in park waters through October; heed beach guidelines and signage before entering the water.Official details
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Cape Cod Tour Guide
Your drive to Ryder Beach Loop, narrated.
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Cape Cod National Seashore. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
Recorded for this area
The Herring’s Round Trip0:00 / 0:31
“River herring connect the Cape's freshwater ponds and streams to the open sea. Two fish share that name: alewives and blueback herring.”
Plays on the road 0.6 mi from the trailhead in the Parkwolf Cape Cod Tour Guide.
More stories near here in the app
- Atwood-Higgins House
- A Turtle of the Salt Marsh
- Great Island Tavern Loop
- A Horseshoe Crab Hitchhiker
- 56 audio storiesacross Cape Cod’s roads, triggered by GPS as you drive
- Wildlife heatmapsfor Gray Seal, Coyote, Red Fox, and 13 more
- Works offlinemaps, 32 trails, 55 places, and audio download before you lose signal
- CarPlay readysimple controls built for the drive
“Fantastic app with many points of information… It’s great to just turn on while you’re driving and it gives you an audio tour of the national Park. We love it!!!!”
Trail guide
Hiking Ryder Beach Loop
The loopRyder Beach Loop is about 3.
Ryder Beach Loop is about 3.1 miles around: it links the former Old Colony railroad grade, the shore at Ryder Beach, and sandy roads around Bound Brook Island. Starting at Ryder Beach, walk south along the bay to reconnect with Bound Brook Island, follow its sand roads inland, then take the old grade and Ryder Beach Road back toward the beach. Allow about 1½ hours. The route stays low, with about 30 metres of cumulative ascent; soft sand and the beach make it more work than a paved stroll. It is stitched from several path types rather than marked as one continuous trail, so save the route offline.
Along the old railbedThe former railroad grade runs almost straight for more than a mile through woods and marsh,…
The former railroad grade runs almost straight for more than a mile through woods and marsh, crossing from Wellfleet into Truro and ending at Ryder Beach Road. Bound Brook Island rises to the west. The line reached Provincetown in 1873, and passenger service ended before World War II. The straight corridor makes the railroad’s old path across this landscape easy to picture.
At Cape Cod BayThe bay shore is the open stretch between the wooded grade and the sandy roads.
The bay shore is the open stretch between the wooded grade and the sandy roads. The route follows the beach south toward Bound Brook Island; the low horizon and wet stones along the water’s edge make the best place to pause for the view. Follow local beach postings, and do not force a route through a closed or impassable shore section.
Bound Brook Island and its housesThe sandy-road return brings a very different feel from the railroad bed.
The sandy-road return brings a very different feel from the railroad bed. The loop passes the Hatch House and the Atwood-Higgins House, a Cape Cod National Seashore house dating to about 1730; treat both as landmarks rather than assuming an interior visit. Nearby Diana’s Trail is separate from this loop: it follows an old deer path through heathland to a bench overlooking Cape Cod Bay.
Parking and accessRyder Beach has a Town lot listed with 32 spaces.
Ryder Beach has a Town lot listed with 32 spaces. A Truro beach parking sticker is required in season, and a portable toilet is listed then; the Town lists no food vendor. This local loop is not one signed National Park Service trail, and the rules for bringing a pet across the full beach, railbed, and road route were not established. Check local access signs before starting; no on-route food stop was found.
Wildlife
Wildlife in Cape Cod
459 sightingsGray SealMost seen around 11 AMSighting map
84 sightingsCoyoteMost seen around 6 AMSighting map
297 sightingsRed FoxMost seen around 7 PMSighting map
49 sightingsWhite-tailed DeerMost seen around 6 AMSighting map
263 sightingsHorseshoe CrabMost seen around 8 PMSighting map
73 sightingsGreat Blue HeronMost seen around 6 PMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Cape Cod. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
