Select Board Agrees To Recommend Restricted Hours For Sconset Bluff Walk, Hiring Of "Docents" To Patrol Path

The Sconset Bluff Walk will have new recommended hours this summer - 8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. - following a vote by the Select Board on Wednesday intended to manage the impacts of increased usage of the popular public walking path that runs in front of private properties along the bluff. The hours are advisory only, however, and there is no ability to enforce them, meaning that anyone can still access the trail before and after the recommended hours if they choose.

“I think thoughtful ideas like these to help manage the impact are valuable, so I’m sort of in favor of moving toward this,” Select Board member Brooke Mohr said. “I think encouraging the intent of the spirit of the public access and trying to manage it makes sense.”

The recommended hours are broader than those proposed by the Sconset Civic Association, which brought the matter before the Select Board, but stricter than what the current signage on the Bluff Walk suggests. They were unanimously endorsed by the board during its meeting on Wednesday evening. The Select Board also voted to allow the Sconset Civic Association to hire so-called “Bluff docents” to educate the public about the walk and recommended usage restrictions. These docents will not have any enforcement power, and the Select Board has asked the Sconset Civic Association to revise the proposed job description before hiring anyone.

“There has to be a balance here of public and private rights that I think was easy to strike when there were only 10,000 of us, peak summer,” Select Board vice chair Matt Fee said. “It’s hard to strike when there are 60 or 80 [thousand], and there’s an internet, and they’re talking about the great walk, and everyone needs to go do it this weekend. I do think there’s some valid points that we could do in [the Sconset Civic Association's proposal]. I’m not sure we could do all of it.”

The Sconset Civic Association contends that the restrictions are necessary to ensure the peace of the homeowners in the area and protect the bluff from the excess erosion that overtourism could potentially cause.

“I have neighbors on the Bluff Walk who told me they woke up one morning and a couple were making love on their front porch,” Sconset resident and Sconset Civic Association member John Shea said. “It is a problem. We do feel like we are being invaded, particularly in the summer.”

The Bluff Walk has become an enormously popular tourist destination, trumpeted by travel sites and Instagram influencers alike.

But some islanders are less sure that the restrictions are warranted, pointing out that the Bluff Walk is a public way, and has been held in trust for the public’s usage for well over a century. They worry that even if the restrictions are advisory, homeowners will use them as justification to harass both year-round residents and tourists who choose to enjoy the trail outside of recommended hours or in a way the Sconset Civic Association disapproves of.

“People will get a little enabled and feel like it is their right to just accost [visitors],” island resident Rain Harbison said. “It’s a precedent that I don’t want to see happen, and there’s a lot of things that I don’t think are being considered.”

The new hours have been instituted on a trial basis only. If there is significant negative feedback, the Select Board may revert to the previous hours. The hours only apply during July and August.

The Sconset Civic Association initially sought to restrict the Bluff Walk’s hours to between 8:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., but Select Board members worried this would prevent islanders who work during the day from accessing the walk.

“I feel very strongly that folks, especially year-rounders who are working, should have the flexibility to go to the Bluff Walk,” Mohr said.

While visitors may enjoy watching the sunset from the bluff, the advisory hours would recommend that no visitors do so during July and August, as the sun sets well after 7:30 p.m. during those months. The previous advisory hours posted on the existing signs ran from 7:30 a.m. to sunset.

The Select Board did not vote to permit the installation of turnstiles or gates at the entrances to the Bluff Walk, another proposal the Sconset Civic Association had suggested.

The Bluff docents, called rangers in an earlier version of the Sconset Civic Association’s proposal, have no power to enforce violations of the trail’s advisory restrictions. The Sconset Civic Association initially planned to pay the docents $50 an hour, but suggested it would be willing to reduce the pay to be more commensurate with what the town pays its community service officers. The highest-paid community service officer receives $30 an hour.

The town had already agreed to some of the Sconset Civic Association’s other proposals, including erosion monitoring and prevention efforts, and removing promotional material related to the Bluff Walk from the town’s website, though one page on the website still calls the path “an exceptional walk on a public footpath.”

The Bluff Walk has a long history. A similar path was described as early as 1775, and may have existed much longer. In 1892, developer William Flagg conveyed the land that comprises the current path, and the town now holds it in trust as a public way. The legality of the Bluff Walk was reaffirmed in a decision by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in 1930.

Select Board chair Dawn Hill was absent from the unanimous vote.

The image below depicts the existing Sconset Bluff Walk signs with the suggested hours, which will be updated for the summer of 2026 with the new recommended hours.