Jefferson

The last thing I expected to see was a tall, steep-sided rise giving a Wyomingish appearance to a spot barely outside of Tampa. But there it was:

Later, when looking at it from the opposite direction on the return leg of our hike, I saw something that made the Western resemblance even stronger: A trio of riderless horses walking along its ridge. Although two of them promptly vanished down the other side when my sister called out to them, I managed to capture a photo of the third before he too walked out of sight. Unfortunately, given the distance from which I shot and the fact I was shooting with a cell phone camera, in the next view it’s not real easy to make him out (just to the left of the high point) and it’s hard to tell he’s an equine:

I am not naïve enough to believe I was looking at a natural feature created by tectonics. The rise is almost certainly the remains of an abandoned landfill that Nature has since beautified with growing grass -- which is fine by me, since it is now part of Nature’s canvas no matter how it came to exist.

At the end of the day, however, that rise is a microscopic cell compared to the total acreage of Lower Hillsborough Wilderness Preserve. We were walking on a 10-mile trail network located south of Cow House Creek in the preserve’s western reaches; for a point of reference, back in December 2011 I wrote about another trail network that is also in the western reaches but north of Cow House Creek.

The fact that these 10 miles of trail pass by the rise does not change the fact that they are, as a whole, just as level as the network I previously wrote about. For much of their distance they pass through lush oak hammocks like this one:

In many places the hammocks are draped by very old vines:

This network is best described as a single trail that happens to fork in a few places and circles back on itself so as to contain its own loops. It travels generally from west to east, or parallel to the preserve’s southern boundary, though its westernmost expanse consists of a loop that is elongated from south to north. The west flank of that loop travels atop a grassy berm overlooking the Tampa Bypass Canal, a 14-mile waterway which connects the Hillsborough River to McKay Bay and serves the defined purposes of diverting floodwaters from the river and providing drinking water to the city of Tampa. Incidentally, the canal has also proven to be a fine canoeing and fishing spot popular with humans and waterfowl alike.

I previously wrote that some sections of Lower Hillsborough Wilderness Preserve have their own names and signage. Well, this trail network counts as one of those sections because the sign at the trailhead identifies it as Jefferson Equestrian Area. The name does not mean that it is for horses only, however. Instead it means that horses are allowed on the trail as well as hikers, which is not the case in most of the preserve.

There is only one point from which to access Jefferson, and it is located off Fowler Avenue just east of I-75. Turn north from Fowler onto Jefferson Road, which passes between Terrace Community Middle School and the Big Top Flea Market and ends at the trailhead after a distance of about one block. You will be pleasantly surprised to find that this location has a gateway to such fine wilderness.

Go here for a printable copy of the trail map. Happy Trails!

Misty Mornin' Hop, Part Two

After backtracking from the river and glade, I stepped onto the road’s shoulder and walked across Morris Bridge. A couple cars zipped by, and, as often happens, I wondered if the drivers had any inkling of the natural beauty that sits just off road waiting to be explored:

On the other side of the bridge, I climbed down onto the boardwalk that passes underneath. A great blue heron was standing by the river no more than 15 feet away, but as soon as I reached for my camera it took flight and flapped upstream on its enormous wings. Thus began a one-minute stretch in which I found myself close to several photogenic birds but failed to get any photos.

Soon after emerging from the bridge, the boardwalk empties into a shaded parking lot where a broad-winged hawk was sitting on a low-hanging branch. He did not flinch as I approached holding my camera; however, when I lifted it to snap a picture, he went airborne in the beat of an eye and vanished into the trees.

And when I made it to the trail on the opposite side of the parking lot, I saw a pair of wood ducks swimming in a creek. That would seem to be the perfect place to take a picture, because shouldn’t water slow a creature down? However -- there’s that word again -- when they saw me they managed to go from floating to flying with stunning speed.

With that, I decided to forge ahead and forget about trying to photograph the animals. A minute later I arrived at a live oak with thick, green resurrection ferns growing on its trunk. Knowing that our area’s resurrections had been brown just a week or two before, I interpreted this as a sign of impending spring:

Back on December 6th I wrote about an intersection of trails “from which the Main Trail turns south; the Heartbreak Ridge Trail goes east; and an unnamed side trail goes north…” As I passed the ferns two Saturdays ago, I was walking on the Main Trail and heading for that intersection, eager to check out the Heartbreak Ridge since I skipped it on my prior visit.

After travelling east through pine flatwoods, the Main Trail arrives at the intersection a half-mile from the parking lot, at a spot where the forest abruptly switches from a dry one dominated by softwoods to a damp one dominated by hardwoods. The mucky earth is scoured by the wallows of wild boars:

This forest becomes so dense you could be standing next to a large animal and not see it:

That morning, it was very obvious that some of its sights were early signs of spring:

If you hike the Heartbreak Ridge Trail, you will notice that the sign describes it as “extremely difficult.” This being Florida, that description is clearly an exaggeration, but the trail does have lots of roots that warrant caution and could challenge a mountain biker. Also, you won’t see anything resembling a ridge, but don’t worry: The forest’s beauty makes up for its lack of elevation change.

Approximately five minutes after stepping onto the Heartbreak Ridge Trail you reach an unsigned intersection with another trail. Continuing straight, the Heartbreak Ridge crosses one of its two wooden footbridges before shifting its direction southward:

It took me twenty minutes to hike the entirety of the Heartbreak Ridge. It ends by emptying onto another trail, which I can only assume is the Main Trail because there was no sign to identify it.

I would have kept going to determine whether this “new” trail was indeed the Main Trail, but I had promised to be home at an early hour, so I turned around and made my way back through the morning mist, listening to the insistent chatter of squirrels -- one of whom was kind enough to alleviate my earlier frustration by allowing me to take his picture:

Happy Trails!

Misty Mornin' Hop, Part One

Fog wrapped itself around the forest shortly before seven a.m. on Saturday. After a two-month absence, I was happy to be back in Lower Hillsborough Wilderness Preserve and checking out some trails I skipped during prior visits.

I stepped onto the Main Trail from the same trailhead mentioned in my November 29th post, and within seconds the scenery inverted the message of that old saying about missing the forest for the trees. This forest was foggy, all right, but now that I was seeing it up close, fog became the last thing I noticed. Instead I was struck by all the little things that usually get overlooked, like contours on bark and dew drops on leaves:

There were signs that spring is knocking on our door. While many of the deciduous trees remained leafless, some were sporting bright green leaf buds, and new maple leaves were especially abundant. A scattering of shed blossoms on the ground revealed that the Carolina jessamine, a tree-faring vine, has already completed its yearly bloom:

A few minutes from the trailhead I came to a T intersection and turned left, onto a side trail that my November 29th post described as going “south to points that are unknown to me.” On this day I was going to find out what those points are.

A chorus of birdsong lightened the mood as the trail traveled downhill into a glade. Although I am not typically given to thoughts of fantasy, the word “enchanting” is what came to mind when I saw the look of its emerald hue in the fog-softened light. Having heard Led Zeppelin’s “Ramble On” the night before, I thought of that song’s allusions to Tolkien and lyrics about “days of old when magic filled the air.”

About two-tenths of a mile after turning onto this trail I arrived at the Hillsborough River, along whose bank the trail travels in both directions:

I opted to go right and head in the opposite direction from the road. A plump red cardinal flitted around a riverside bush and my attempts to photograph him were not successful. Fortunately, the trail’s faint route proved to be a good photo subject in its own right, with water to its left and open woods to its right:

Eventually it petered out among a cluster of cypress knees. Navigation-wise, it would have been easy to keep walking since all the trail was doing was following the river; however, knowing this area is home to large numbers of alligators and cottonmouths, I did an about face after going only 50 or so steps beyond the blazed path.

After all, this was not the only trail I wanted to explore that morning. And with that in mind, I started heading east…

LHW: Morris Bridge

The Hillsborough River forked, as it is wont to do downstream from the state park that bears its name. The wide branch went to the east while the skinny one went to the west:

Eventually those branches re-converge, but all that really mattered to me that morning was this: The parts of Lower Hillsborough Wilderness Preserve that can be accessed from where I was standing, in Morris Bridge Park, are among the most interesting our area has to offer.

Morris Bridge Park is one of several separately named sections of the preserve. At 106 acres, it is far from the biggest and accounts for less than seven-tenths of one percent of the total acreage, but who cares? Those 106 acres are lovely, and the Main Trail, which passes through them, leads you out into the preserve’s wide “unincorporated” reaches.

To reach the park, drive 3.8 miles east of I-75 on Fletcher Avenue, which becomes Morris Bridge Road along the way. The sign for the park is on the left side of the road, but there are parking lots on both sides. It doesn’t matter which one you choose because they are linked by a boardwalk underneath Morris Bridge; however, you may want to know that the bathrooms are on the left.

From the left-side parking lot it is easy to spot the arching footbridge that marks one of two trailheads on that side of the road. It crosses the skinny branch of the river and deposits you on a boardwalk, over on the island which results from it forking. The boardwalk offers several good river views while taking you on a quarter-mile loop through the woods:

The other trail on this side is an earthen one called the Buteo Trail, which totals a half-mile and loops through the forest on the “mainland side” of the skinny branch. To reach it, walk along the entry road back toward the spot where you turned off of Morris Bridge Road. The trailhead is obvious and marked by the sign/map pictured below. The Buteo Trail is “self-guided” in that it has 19 numbered posts identifying various sights; you can find out what each post is about by taking a brochure from the dispenser at the trailhead.

As attractive as everything is on the left side of the road, the right side is where your thirst for exploring is most likely to be sated. Near the sheltered picnic tables on that side is the beginning of the Bald Cypress Trail: a 1½-mile lollipop loop that tracks along the river bank for part of the way and slips away from it, into the riverine forest, for the rest. I suspect you would find much of this trail to be under water if you visited during the rainy season:

When Sarah and I were here a few weeks ago, we did not complete the entirety of the Bald Cypress Trail because she started complaining of hunger and about mosquitoes, and I couldn’t deny that it was about time for her to eat. So we made our way back to those picnic tables and scarfed down some of the contents of my backpack.

Then she mentioned that she wanted to hike the other trail that departs from this side. The signs said it would lead to a river overlook after one mile. Being an outdoorsman at heart, I figured that when a seven-year-old identifies a part of the outdoors she wants to explore, you don’t discourage her, so off we went.

The trail in question was actually a segment of the Main Trail, which I mentioned above and in my previous post. On this day we followed it south from the parking lot and it soon turned east into a palmetto field. We had gone a little more than a half-mile when we reached an intersection from which the Main Trail turns south; the Heartbreak Ridge Trail goes east; and an unnamed side trail goes north to the overlook.

Obviously we turned north (left) and went along on our merry way. We were now out of the palmettos and into a forest where you could not look in any direction without seeing water. The trail was wide enough to drive a car on and perched just above its surroundings, almost like an abandoned railroad route, to keep it dry:

Sarah thoroughly enjoyed the overlook where it dead-ended:

On our way back to the car we encountered a box turtle crossing the path:

Sarah decided to “help” it cross, and after picking it up and turning it over she announced that she had never known what a turtle’s belly looks like. She asked me to take a picture of her holding it, with its belly on display, and I obliged:

We noticed something else interesting on our return -- topography! Glancing off at an angle, we saw the ground rise visibly in what resembled a small Indian mound, and we set off to climb it. It was no more than 10 feet from bottom to top, but in Florida you take what you can get:

I was surprised to find that this hill did not simply drop down on the other side. Instead it continued in an elongated, ridge-like manner, and Sarah skipped along it happy as a clam:

Morris Bridge Park is an entry point to a world you should be sure to see. Happy Trails!

LHW: Flatwoods from the south

The word “primeval” occurred to me when I took a step and felt the carpet of leaves press ever so slightly into the muck below. The ground was spongy even though we were a half-mile from the river and it had been a long time since the last significant rain.

Not that I should have been surprised. After all, we were in the subtropics and walking through what is known as a floodplain forest. Realizing it probably wasn’t a good idea to have left the marked trail with my seven-year-old daughter in tow, I guided Sarah back to the footbridge from which we had hopped down into this gully (creek bed?) and we resumed our original course.

My previous post detailed a hike I took after driving into the Flatwoods Park section of Lower Hillsborough Wilderness Preserve. On this day, however, I chose to enter Flatwoods on foot, by hiking the Main Trail from farther south in the preserve.

The Main Trail winds 20 miles through Lower Hillsborough Wilderness and along its route links up with many other trails. Sarah and I stepped onto it at the spot where it departs from the west shoulder of Morris Bridge Road, just north of Morris Bridge itself. The spot is marked by this sign on the opposite side of the road:

From here the road runs southwest to northeast while the trail runs south to north, so the two depart from each other at a 45-degree angle. The floodplain forest, through which you travel early on, has a decidedly jungle-like appearance:

Because Lower Hillsborough Wilderness is a continuous preserve whose separately named sections are not partitioned, there is no way to tell when you officially enter Flatwoods Park out on the trail. Nonetheless, it is easy to tell when you enter the habitat for which it is named.

Here in Florida, mere inches of elevation change can drastically alter the landscape. On this portion of the Main Trail you will never get the sense that you have climbed, but you will definitely notice when you have left the floodplain forest and entered the flatwood forest. The former is damp, dark, and jungly, while the latter is dry and sunny. The former is marked by oaks and a variety of palms, while the latter is marked by pines and saw palmettos.

Rather than a carpet of leaves beside the trail, the flatwood offers up a carpet of pine needles. On the day we were there, it also offered up proof that wild hogs are common in the preserve. Check out these wallows that hogs made right on the trail:

A little more than a mile after departing Morris Bridge Road, the Main Trail reaches Flatwoods Park’s east road right at the spot where the road turns. Other than backtracking, your options are to go right and follow the road to the visitor center; go straight and follow it to its end, which is where I started the hike described in my previous post; or go left on a seven-mile paved trail from which you can access several more unpaved paths.

Because Sarah had to go to the bathroom and did not want to pee in the woods, we hoofed it to the visitor center. After she used the ladies room, we sat at a picnic table and ate some of the food that was stashed in my backpack. Along the roadside between the trail and the visitor center we saw some autumn foliage:

Walking with Sarah slowed me down because she kept stopping to look at tracks (both real and imagined) and she wanted to inspect every nook and cranny of the woods to figure out what animals live there. But I was not about to complain because it is awesome to see her enthused and curious about the outdoors. And it was adorable when she decided to fashion a palmetto frond into a natural parasol:

The Main Trail is easy to follow, partly because it is marked by numbered signposts. Along the portion we hiked are two side trails, one of which goes west and eventually intersects with the paved trail mentioned above. The other one goes south to points that are unknown to me.

Our slow pace, coupled with my knowledge that we were needed at home to help out with my five-month-old son, kept us from exploring the side trails that morning. But I (or we) will return and do that before long, and you can expect a report when that happens.

The reach the trailhead we used, take I-75 to the Fletcher Avenue exit and drive east for four miles. Physically, there is nothing to prevent you from simply parking on the roadside and stepping onto the trail, but I suspect that as far as the county is concerned, you are supposed to park at Morris Bridge Park and walk along the road to the trailhead. That way you are prompted to fork over the $2 fee at the pay center in the parking lot.

Morris Bridge Park is located just before Morris Bridge with parking lots on both sides of the road. You will have to walk across the bridge, whose shoulder is amply wide, and from there it is 0.2 miles to the trailhead.

Happy Trails!

LHW: Flatwoods from the east

Of all the regions in Lower Hillsborough Wilderness Preserve, Flatwoods Park is the best known and most visited. And as I alluded in my previous post, this is largely because it contains a seven-mile paved trail that attracts droves of joggers, bicyclists, and in-line skaters. However, the overwhelming majority of those visitors never step off the pavement to venture onto the earthen routes which I consider to be “the true Flatwoods” -- and which I set off to experience when temperatures dipped into the forties a couple weekends ago.

Rather than accessing Flatwoods from its popular western entrance on Bruce B. Downs, I chose to use the isolated eastern entrance on Morris Bridge Road. After driving to the end of the park’s east road, 0.8 miles past the visitor center, I stepped onto the trail pictured below. As if to demonstrate that the word “wetlands” applies to much of the forest through here, that structure you see is one of several covered footbridges across areas that usually have standing water.

Although a sign at the beginning of the trail says it leads 0.4 miles to a trailhead and another sign along the way says you are 0.1 miles from an interpretive center, I never encountered anything that qualifies as either. The trail ends at a T intersection with another one, at which point there is no signage to tell you what lies in either direction. I arbitrarily decided to go left, and as you can see, the second trail is wide enough that “dirt road” might be a more apt description:

This trail proved interesting because it follows a line of separation between two ecosystems. To my left was the hardwood forest from which I had just emerged, where the tree canopy is dense and the underbrush sparse -- while to my right was a pine flatwoods habitat, where the canopy is sparse and the underbrush dense:

Six minutes later I came to a narrow, unsigned path that slips into the flatwoods. I followed it to its end, then backtracked off of it and resumed my course until I came to these blazing stars:

While crouched down to photograph them, I heard the sound of something big moving nearby, and a moment later a deer bolted across the trail from left to right.

Shortly after again resuming my walk, I saw a buck and doe standing in the hardwood forest to my left, only twenty or so feet away. When I made eye contact with the buck, the two of them ran deeper into the forest and disappeared.

Seconds later I heard a sound, glanced right, and saw a fourth deer bounding away into the flatwoods with its tail held aloft.

Before long another wide trail branched off to the right. After turning onto it and walking for three minutes, I came to a well house where I again went right. The next landmark was a T intersection where I turned right yet again. Eventually the next trail’s direction shifted ever so slightly into the sun and the glare whited out my vision...and right after moving forward a few steps to escape the glare, I saw a large animal that I believe was a coyote. At first I thought it was another deer, but in the blink of an eye it took for it to turn and flee into the woods, I noticed its tail was long and held outward (unlike a deer’s, which is short and held up when it runs).

Anyone who has seen a moving creature for a mere fraction of a second and tried to figure out what it was in hindsight, knows about the confusion and second-guessing that are caused by such encounters. On the one hand, coyote are nowhere near as tall as deer so I wondered how I could have mistaken one for the other…but on the other hand, that tail definitely did not belong to a deer so it must have been a coyote’s…or maybe it actually was a deer’s and I “misperceived” its length and position because everything happened so fast…or maybe it belonged to some other wild animal I was forgetting about…or maybe it was just a big stray dog that happened to wander out here into the backwoods.

I walked forward hoping to get a glimpse of the creature off to the side of the trail, but there was no glimpse to be had. I did see tracks, however, and they resembled the illustrations of coyote prints in my Audubon Society field guide -- except that I couldn’t make out any claw marks in front of the toe pads. Maybe some knowledgeable reader can help me out with this one?

In any event, my wildlife encounters continued before I even moved from that spot, because when I stood up from looking at the tracks and turned around, I was treated to the sight of a bald eagle gliding just over the tops of the pines. Unfortunately, it was out of sight before I could take a picture.

I made my way back to the car, and just so you know, I continued past the first T intersection for several minutes to see if I could find that alleged interpretive center. For the record, I found nothin’ but wasn’t bothered by it because the sky was blue and the temperature was cool and I enjoyed being outside.

To reach the eastern entrance of Flatwoods, take I-75 to the Fletcher Avenue exit then head east for 5.3 miles, by which time Fletcher has become Morris Bridge Road. The entrance is on the left and you can’t miss it.

Also, be aware that you need to pay a $2 fee because this is a county park. It is an honors system by which you stop at the kiosk in the visitor center parking lot; put your money in one of the provided envelopes; detach the hang tag from the envelope, and hang it from your rear view mirror.

And lastly, be aware that of all the trails mentioned in this post, the only one with any signage is that first one that starts at the end of the road.

Happy Trails!

Lower Hillsborough Wilderness

Adjacent to Hillsborough River State Park -- and four times its size -- sprawls a wild land whose very presence is a surprise to most people. Lower Hillsborough Wilderness Preserve (LHW) encompasses almost all of the land between U.S. 301 and New Tampa east of I-75. Morris Bridge Road bisects it and is where you will find seven of its twelve entry points.

The Hillsborough River flows through the preserve, as do several major tributaries that empty into it here. These include Trout Creek, Cow House Creek, Two Hole Branch, and the Dead River, just to name a few.

This is a county park that was once known simply as Wilderness Park. And interestingly, while very few people know of it as a whole, many do know about certain sections of it. This is because some sections have their own names and signage and have gained a reputation for specific activities...For instance, Flatwoods Park’s paved, seven-mile loop makes it popular with joggers, bicyclists, and skaters; while Morris Bridge Park is favored by paddlers because of its canoe launch.

Where hiking is concerned, more than 60 miles of trails wind through the preserve. They range from earthen paths to paved ones to boardwalks, making it clear that there is something here for every hiker to enjoy.

In the coming weeks and months I will write about a number of specific hikes here, and I humbly suggest relying on my descriptions instead of the trail map. Although the map does do a decent job showing where the preserve’s entry points are, it does a frankly terrible one showing the routes and intersections (and in some cases, even the presence) of the trails themselves.

Maybe that is a problem of ownership, because although LHW is run by Hillsborough County, it is owned by the Southwest Florida Water Management District -- and as you may recall, my last post about a district property also noted major map errors.

Fortunately, I promise to steer you right! Please stay tuned…