A walk along the three-mile Salt Bay Heritage Trail in Damariscotta is always a treat, with windows onto the waters from dense forest along the path providing lovely views and glimpses of wildlife as you travel.

Add a few inches of snow and a nip of winter cold, however, and the place becomes an enchanted escape, be it on foot, x-c skis or snowshoes.

I traveled the route with a lively group from the Maine Outdoor Adventure Club not too long ago, ten hearty souls very much up for a sojourn over new ground, and this circuit around Glidden Point was just the thing.

The Salt Bay Trail starts from Mills Road (Route 215), just off Route 1 in Damariscotta.
Carey Kish photo

The trail hugs the shoreline of scenic Great Salt Bay for a mile and a half.
Carey Kish photo

Bisected by busy Route 1 you'd be hard pressed to know such a hike existed. For years I'd sped right through the area, until one day a bridge over an outlet into Salt Bay caught my eye and registered "trail" in my brain.

A bit of Internet sleuthing unearthed the Damariscotta River Association and miles of wonderful walks in the area, the Salt Bay Trail among them--a true gem that wends east along the edge of Great Salt Bay before turning back west above the Damariscotta River.

We observed bald eagles and a host of shore birds en route.
Carey Kish photo

MOACers trudge through deep woods and soft snow on the Salt Bay Trail.
Carey Kish photo

There would be no horseshoe crabs or otters, cattails or Indian pipes--the stuff of summer--on our winter walk. But we did enjoy several bald eagle sightings, as well as buffleheads and a number of other shore birds afloat in the bay.

The tide was up to the banks at the magnificent shell middens along the Damariscotta River, so to see the more exposed layers you had to slosh through the water. But it was worth it to observe and intellectually grasp one of the largest such shell heaps in the world, just a mere 2,400 years old, some 30 feet deep and many acres across.

Our group enjoyed it all over three-plus glorious hours in the sun of this wintry day. Chatter and laughter and awe and joy carried us along, and much too soon we were back at the trail head on Mills Road (Route 215).

Happy hikers from the Maine Outdoor Adventure Club.
Carey Kish photo

But no matter because a cold pint and a filling meal awaited us in nearby Damariscotta at the King Eider Pub, a most excellent post-hike watering hole. Poking about the pretty main street of town and a visit to Reny's basement put a perfect exclamation point on a fine day outside.

What a day outdoors on the Salt Bay Trail!.
Carey Kish photo

Have you hiked the Salt Bay Trail or other nearby trails of the Damariscotta River Association?