First Grass

Best Time to Visit First Grass

There's no dedicated hiking season to plan around here — First Grass is a spot you pass through rather than a place you set out for, so the better way to think about timing is in the context of a broader trip out South Point Road. Visit whenever you're already making that drive or walk toward South Point.

There's also no need to time a visit around seasonal change: the vegetation that has grown in across the area is now a fixed, year-round feature rather than something that comes and goes with the seasons. A visit here is about noticing a piece of island history as you pass, not scheduling a trip around it.

Tips for Visiting First Grass

• Look for it rather than navigate to it — First Grass isn't a marked destination, so there's no landmark to spot along South Point Road.
• Don't expect the "first grass" itself to stand out — the vegetation that once made this spot distinctive has since spread across the whole area, erasing the old visual cue.
• Treat it as something to notice along the way, not a hike to plan a trip around — it only makes sense as part of a longer drive or walk out South Point Road.
• Bring the historical context with you — knowing what the landscape looked like within living memory is what makes the spot worth noticing today.

Getting to First Grass

First Grass sits on the northwest side of South Point Road, about a mile and three-quarters off NC Highway 12. As a historic place name rather than a built destination, it has no marker of its own — you reach it simply by driving or walking South Point Road itself, the unpaved sandy track that runs out toward South Point.

Today, that road is lined with tall grass for nearly its whole unpaved length, and vegetation likewise runs unbroken along NC Highway 12 between the village and Hatteras Inlet. Plan on this as a stop along the drive or walk out to South Point rather than a separate destination with its own approach.

What to Expect at First Grass

First Grass isn't a park or a trailhead — it's a place name, one of the small, practical markers Ocracoke islanders used to navigate long before street signs or GPS existed. The name marked a real transition: the first patch of grass a traveler reached after crossing bare sand flats south of the village. By local place-name history, the ground between Ocracoke village and the old NPS campground was, within living memory of longtime residents, roughly three miles of open sand, shell, and seaweed, broken only occasionally by a small dune topped with sea oats — and the stretch toward South Point looked much the same.

That landscape is gone today. Vegetation now runs unbroken along the route, and the sudden line of green that once told travelers they'd reached "first grass" after miles of open sand is nearly impossible to pick out. What's left here is less a landmark than a piece of island memory — a small, tangible way to see how much Ocracoke's own ground cover has shifted in a couple of generations.