Southwick Beach State Park

Southwick Beach State Park is a New York State park that lies along an unusual stretch of sandy beach on the eastern shore of Lake Ontario. The park is 464 acres (188 ha) in size with a 3,500 foot (1,100 m) length of beach, and is visited annually by about 100,000 people. Immediately to the south is the Lakeview Wildlife Management Area (3,461 acres (1,401 ha)), which extends the publicly accessible beach by several miles. They are in the Town of Ellisburg in Jefferson County, New York south of the lakeside community of Jefferson Park.

The park offers an extensive campground with tent and trailer sites, picnic facilities, playing fields and a playground. In summer, the swimming area has lifeguards and the park store is open. In winter, snowmobiles are permitted in the park. The park has an accessible nature trail. There are hiking trails from the park that extend into the Lakeview Wildlife Management Area. Lakeview itself has several access points for launching boats, as well as a second nature trail along South Sandy Creek. The hiking trails and boat routes are described at several websites, and in guidebooks by William P. Ehling and by Susan Peterson Gateley.

The park and wildlife management area lie within a rare, freshwater coastal barrier environment that consists of beaches, sand dunes, embayments and marshes. The wildlife management area is also the Lakeview Marsh and Barrier Beach National Natural Landmark, which was cited in 1973 as, "One of the best and most extensive marshlands that lie in protected bays and behind barrier beaches along eastern Lake Ontario." Southwick Beach State Park and Lakeview Wildlife Management Area are included within the New York State Natural Heritage Area entitled "Eastern Lake Ontario Barrier Beach and Wetland Complex"; Lakeview is incorporated in the Eastern Lake Ontario Marshes Bird Conservation Area.

The dunes immediately adjacent to the beach support a plant community dominated by beachgrass. The beachgrass grows runners under the surface of the sand that interlock into a ropelike network, and actually builds the dune by trapping sand. Some tall wormwood plants grow amidst the beachgrass, as do cottonwood trees and sand dune willows. Cottonwood is the only dune-forming tree in the area. Sand dune willows are fairly rare in New York State, but are a common woody plant in these dunes. This "beachgrass plant community" stabilizes the dunes against erosion by wind and storm, and enables the growth of a more complex, "poison ivy-dune grape-cottonwood plant community" deeper in the dunes.

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Wikipedia