Typical terrain in the Otis Pike Fire Island High Dune Wilderness

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Wilderness Visitor Center

Beaches

Backcountry Camping

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The Otis Pike Fire Island High Dune Wilderness (aka Otis Pike Wilderness) makes up the majority of Fire Island National Seashore. It runs from Watch Hill near the center of the park to the eastern boundary at the Wilderness Visitor Center, a 7.5-mile stretch of land. It is only interrupted by the privately owned Bellport Beach located around the halfway point.

The only parking on National Park Service property at the Otis Pike Wilderness is at a free 15-minute parking lot next to the Visitor Center that you can use to drop off gear or to run inside to get a park brochure or other information. For long term parking, visitors must use the Smith Point County Park parking lot, an enormous lot a half-mile long and a tenth of a mile wide that is capable of holding over 3,000 vehicles. There is a fee to enter the park, but this includes the use of the beaches, bathhouse, concessions, and other amenities. To enter the Otis Pike Wilderness from the Watch Hill end, visitors must either take a private boat or public ferry from Long Island to Watch Hill or make a 13-mile hike from Robert Moses State Park at the western end of Fire Island.

While there is an Atlantic Ocean beach that runs the length of the Wilderness, most of the area is covered with impenetrable brush that can only be explored on narrow foot trails or the Burma Road, a wide, sandy trail that runs the length of Fire Island in some shape or form. A park Ranger told me that nobody ventures beyond the beach in the summer due to the proliferation of ticks, mosquitoes, and poison ivy that thrive in the wilderness. The poison ivy grows so tall—as tall as some small trees—that long pants won’t do you much good, and in spots the mosquito population is on par with that of the Everglades. Most people who hike or backcountry camp in the actual wilderness do so only in the winter when the vegetation and bugs have died off. Park volunteers also clear the trails during this time.

Burma Road runs through the Otis Pike Wilderness of Fire Island National Seashore

The Otis Pike Wilderness is not termed “wilderness” simply because it is an undeveloped natural area. This is a Federal government designation that carries with it certain restrictions, the most pertinent to visitors—particularly backcountry campers—being that no wheeled devices are allowed. This means that you cannot bring a bike, a wagon, or a cooler on wheels into the vegetation, even on the trails (this does not include the beach). You can, however, drag your cooler along the ground, damaging everything in its path, or carry your gear on a sled. It’s the stupidest thing since Anna Nicole Smith, but them’s the rules.

Sand dune in the Otis Pike Wilderness, Fire Island National Seashore

Since I visited Fire Island National Seashore in the summer, I did not venture into the wilderness other than through a short section along a quarter-mile boardwalk that begins at the Visitor Center and ends at a sandy path that leads down to the beach. The boardwalk gives visitors an idea of what the Wilderness is all about without having to walk through the tick- and poison ivy-infested vegetation. However, you still can’t avoid the mosquitoes, and I can vouch for their abundance.

Short boardwalk through a section of the Otis Pike Wilderness at Fire Island National Seashore gives visitors a look at the wilderness without the ticks and poison ivy

Path at the end of the boardwalk through a section of the Otis Pike Wilderness at Fire Island National Seashore leads down to the beach

Swimming is allowed (though not encouraged) from any of the beaches that flank the Otis Pike Wilderness.

Beach flanking the Otis Pike Wilderness, Fire Island National Seashore

Some of the more remote beach areas at Fire Island National Seashore have been turned into unofficial nude beaches. Though technically illegal, the National Park Service tolerated the practice and never enforced the anti-nudity laws, which are state, not federal laws. However, after Hurricane Sandy leveled many of the sand dunes that provided seclusion for the nude bathers, people started to complain, and the National Park Service has attempted to put a stop to it. Of course, not everyone follows the rules, and I encountered a few nude sunbathers during my hike along the Otis Pike Wilderness beaches. I will say that the bathers at least had the courtesy to put up privacy fences so they could not be seen, and they do walk a good ways from the populated areas before settling down.

Privacy fence used by a nude bather on the beach flanking the Otis Pike Wilderness, Fire Island National Seashore

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