Hiking
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Trapped by Water at Great Egret’s Ridge Day Use Area | Trinity River National Wildlife Refuge
Our last stop on this Trinity River NWR tour was only a few miles away from the Knobby Knees Trail. If you look at the map you can see how the two trails get very near each other far back towards the river. Green Anole, Anolis carolinensis A whirlpool caused by the water rushing through the culvert under the levee we were walking on. Forest was enamored by this when I pointed it out to him because he had just begun creating his own little whirlpools in the paddling pool we have in the backyard. This trail started off promising, despite being surrounded by deep water on both sides of…
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Swamped at the Knobby Knees Day Use Area | Trinity River National Wildlife Refuge
Ruddy Dagger, Acronicta rubricoma Knobby Knees Day Use Area Trail Map After our hike at Brierwood Day Use Area we drove south to the town of Liberty where a few more day use areas were closer to civilization and had a higher liklihood of being maintained. Or, that was the thought. This trail series begins at the back of Liberty Municipal Park. Forest looked sadly at the flagged off playground and wished he could play. I would have loved letting him run around for 30-45 minutes! A few people were out walking, a father and son were having batting practice on the ball field, and otherwise it was fairly quiet.…
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Exploring the Bottomlands at the Brierwood Dayuse Area | Trinity River National Wildlife Refuge
Last weekend we trekked to the Trinity River National Wildlife Refuge to try to do some hiking. We ended up at three different refuge unit day use areas, the first one being the Brierwood Day Use Area east of the town of Cleveland. I wanted to escape a bit further from our usual haunt of Sam Houston National Forest, or at least the west side of the forest, and also get into some different habitats. The Brierwood unit looked like it would be perfect for social distancing, and it was! Trail map here —- I had to dig to find this, by the way. It isn’t easily found on the…
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The Savage River Trail | Denali National Park
Continuing to flash back to last August and September, another world really. I just read a journalist’s article on flying in this pandemic and how extremely nerve-wracking it is for everyone, somewhat post apocalyptic. I’m feeling fairly certain this big trip to Alaska was our last big trip for a a good while. And my flight to Florida back in January will be my last flight for several years. So going back to these posts and seeing life as normal, it makes me miss it all the more. Our first stop after lunch on the day we arrived in the Denali area was to the Visitors Center to pick up…
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Hiking a New Section of the Lone Star Trail
Two weekends ago on a warm, sunny Sunday we drove up to Sam Houston National Forest for another hike on the Lone Star Trail. We started from the Trailhead #6 parking lot on FM 1375 and found ourselves with a very full parking lot. We knew this was likely and the trail heads on FM 149 as we drove past were also quite busy. But we had a plan—go south from Trailhead #6 because we knew that heading east towards Lake Conroe would be busy. And we were right. During our hike in we encountered one family leaving and didn’t see anyone else until we reached the parking lot at…
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Nature in the City | Burroughs Park
Dusting off another one of those draft posts and OMG will you look at this kid??? Almost 3 years old—this hike was done in early August 2017, weeks before Hurricane Harvey. Forest turned three a month later. Those chubby little legs and oversized backpack—*insert crying emoji here*. Burroughs Park is a Harris county park located just south of Spring Creek, the dividing line for Montgomery and Harris counties. It is a large park with areas for soccer and baseball games, several playgrounds, a dog park, and a large pond with walking paths. In the back portion of the park is an undeveloped tract of land with trails that you can…
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Lepidopterans of Brazos Bend State Park
If you are a blogger like me you may have a stash of drafts sitting in your writing platform waiting to be published. Many of mine will never see the light of day but I thought I should dig this one out and blow the dust off of it and share some photos from a few years ago that I intended to post but never did! One or two might have made it into a wrap-up post about a camping trip but I believe the majority haven’t been shared. It’s mostly an eye-candy post, to feast your eyes on the beauty of the lepidopterans! Looks like state parks are potentially…
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Escaping to the Lone Star Trail
On Good Friday we made our escape—we hit the Lone Star Trail in Sam Houston National Forest. I was going stir crazy and as much as I love being at home and can make things work, I wanted to see “outside”—outside itself but outside as in an area greater than our neighborhood. Plus, I was missing wildflower season and I wanted to attempt to see more flowers before the heat of summer settled in. Very local and in-town locations I knew would be busier and we wanted to avoid those places. After seeing some other folks in other areas of the state and country go hiking and often at empty…
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Smuggler’s Cove | Skagway, AK
After we left Yakutania Point we continued on our way down the trail northward, not quite sure where exactly it would take us. If all else failed we could turn around and follow our steps back the way we came. Squashberry, Viburnum edule Parmelia sp. lichens—these were really cool! The walk down these trails continued to be just as enticing as the walk to Yakutania Point, with spongy ground to walk on and moss, ferns, and lichens covering all manner of things in the forest. Licorice Fern, Polypodium glycyrrhiza The rock slabs here were a welcome diversion along the trail. More wonderful lichens… And I would have loved to have…
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Exploring Yakutania Point | Skagway, AK
Let’s go on a virtual hike since most of us aren’t venturing out any longer. During our brief foray into Skagway, AK we asked some of the rangers in the national park visitor center in town if there was a hiking trail nearby. We’d exhausted our patience for walking up and down the main drag in town and really needed to do something before we got back on the ship for the evening. The rangers gave us some vague directions to get to a hiking trail just past the airport and when we found this sign we knew we’d made it to the right place. Crossing the Skagway River… And…