Yanty Marsh Nature trail is located at the eastern edge of Hamlin Beach State Park. The trail loops through a deciduous forest along the lake, overlooking a large marsh and winding through a white pine grove. The 65 acres of Yanty Marsh include many different habitats, including a deciduous forest, a conifer lot, a marsh, and lakeshore.
As early as 1904, hunters camped on the lakeshore near Yanty Marsh. Between 1935 and 1941, CCC men used the pond in Yanty to ice skate. In the 1930s, residents petitioned for a small harbor to be built where Yanty Creek meets Lake Ontario. In 1945, the Park Commission and U.S. Corps of Engineers began working on plans for the harbor. These plans included a harbor and a ten-foot-wide channel. The U.S. Congress approved the project in 1968, but it was never funded. The harbor project was abandoned in 1981. Although the harbor was never built, efforts to expand access to the area resumed in the 1970s.
In 1977, work began to create an educational and accessible nature trail in the Yanty area as a Comprehensive Educational Training Act project. The self-guided design of the trail was equipped with interpretive signs and Braille. The trail was used to teach ecological succession, beginning in an old field which has since grown into a deciduous forest. An educational information building made from an old wooden bathhouse was located in the area but removed in the 1980s due to vandalism. Plans to build a new environmental education building at the southwestern edge of the Yanty area were never completed. In 1998, the marsh was almost lost. Storms broke the land barrier which protected the marsh habitat from waves. Different agencies came together to build an 1830-foot-long wall to protect the marsh from waves and future storms.
