Scargo Tower

Author's Comments

The drive up Scargo Hill takes maybe two minutes from the main road, and the parking area holds perhaps eight cars on a generous day. I have rarely seen it full. The tower itself is small and unassuming, a stone cylinder that you almost want to call modest, and the staircase inside is tight enough that you wait your turn if anyone is coming down. But then you climb out onto the top, and the Cape opens up around you in a way it does almost nowhere else. Scargo Lake sits directly below, a perfect glacial bowl of water reading deep blue or green depending on the hour. Beyond it the land flattens toward Cape Cod Bay, and on a clear evening in late September you can see all the way to the Pilgrim Monument standing thin and pale on the Provincetown horizon. The geography becomes legible from up here in a way it never quite does at sea level. Golden hour is the reason to come. The light moves across the lake first, then climbs the far shore, then catches the bay in long horizontal bands before the sun drops behind the trees to the west. I have made the wide shot many times and I am never entirely satisfied with it - the view is bigger than any single frame can hold - but the trying is its own reward. Bring a wide lens and a longer one both. The monument across the bay wants reach. This is the kind of place locals know about and quietly do not advertise. Go on a weekday. Stay until the light is fully gone.

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