Green Swamp, East Tract, Florida Trail, Short Section to Withlacoochee River, April 16, 2016

I realized in March that I was not going to tale off the month of May to hike the southern portion of the Appalachian Trail (AT) as I had planned.  Responsibilities at work would not allow me to be gone that long.  This was a depressing development.  I took a few weeks off from hiking on the weekends.  I was doing this to get in shape and prepare for the AT.

Started to get over it by hiking a short section of the Florida Trail in the Green Swamp East Tract.  Parked at the Rock Ridge Road entrance which is at the intersection of Tanic Road.  (It is also called Main Grade Road on some maps.)  The approximate address is 18038 Rockridge Road, Polk City FL 33868.  The lat/long is 28.312834, -81918574.  The portion hiked was in the northern part of Polk County, FL.  The property is part of a large public preserve and is owned by the Southwest Florida Water Management District.

There are several free (yes, no charge) campsites along Tanic Road just north of Rockridge Road.  Registration for the free campsites is about 1/2 mile north of Rockridge Road on Tanic Road.

A few weeks ago I was planning on doing a 50 mile plus loop in the Green Swamp to learn and test the skills and gear I would need to do the southern portion of the AT.  The loop started here and followed the FT northeast to Richloam, east to near the Van Fleet Trail, and then south to the starting point.

The Florida Trail (FT) crosses Rockridge Road and roughly runs parallel to and on the east side of Tanic Road.  After crossing the Withlacoochee River it heads east and then northeast.  The Florida Trail splits south of Orlando and this is part of the western corridor of the FT going around Orlando.

There are many old roads and old railroad grades in the area.  I am assuming they are from back when the area was logged many years ago.  I have read that the logging companies would build narrow gage railroad tracks to get the cut logs to the sawmill, then remove the tracks and ties to be used in a new area.

The FT follows some of the old railroad grades.  It also followed Tanic Road for a section and crosses the Withlacoochee River on the Tanic Road Bridge.

The photo below was taken looking north and shows a section of the FT that follows Tanic Road. On the right is where to register for a free campsite.

 

Below is a photo of the trail going through pine trees.

Here is a photo of the Tanic Road bridge over the Withlacoochee River.

An alligator is resting in the middle of the photo below.  (The tip of my finger is at the top of the photo.)

Here is another photo of the river showing a gaging station.  Notice the cypress trees in the background.

Another photo of the river.

The river was my turning around point.  I headed back to the parking spot along Tanic Road rather than going back on the FT.

Here is a photo looking south along Tanic Road.

The round trip was 5 miles long and took 2 hours and 5 minutes.


Below are links that shows a map of the route I took and where the photos were taken along the route.

https://www.gaiagps.com/datasummary/track/e82aba6112c31bd7610ad51db54c8e1a/#?layer=gaiapublicland,openhikingmap,MapBoxAerial&alpha=gaiapublicland:1,openhikingmap:0,MapBoxAerial:0.95&slideshow=false



 https://www.gaiagps.com/public/BNaPL9eko5TOaJtBC8jnyQZ2



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Hike Between Grange Hall Rd and Leonard Lee Road along the Little Manatee River, 3-19-16

Started about 8:30am at Grange Hall Road just south of the Little Manatee River and headed west to Leonard Lee Road.  Had to park on the shoulder of Grange Hall Road.  There was no where else to park.  It was already starting to get warm, the sun was shining but the grass and plants were still wet with dew.

Once I got to Leonard Lee Road, I had to turn around and followed the same route back to Grange Hall Road where my vehicle was parked.

The trail went roughly parallel to the Little Manatee River on the south side of the river.  It never got close enough to the river to see the river. 

Went through a mixture of woods and old fields that are filled with palmettos now, with some trees starting to take hold.  The wooded areas were for the most part old live oaks.

 Close to the beginning had to wade through a low spot filled with water.  It was about one foot deep.  Had wet feet the rest of the walk.

This is what the trail looked like part of the way.  There was much variation.

There is a sand hill crane in the middle of the photo trying to lead me away from his mate and two chicks. 
 
 Here is the mother sand hill crane and two newly hatched chicks.  The chicks were covered with a brownish orange fuzz.

Here is a series of photos of the mother sand hill crane and two chicks.  The mother was still catching bugs and feeding them to the chicks.

Here are a couple of photos of one of the chicks who did not want to follow his mother. 

 It is hard to spot but one of the chicks is near the middle of the photo in the grass.  They blend in well.

 This is an unnamed stream flowing north into the Little Manatee River.  The view is looking north towards the river.

 Here is a view looking upstream of the unnamed stream.  I suspect the sand deposits are laid down during floods.  The river level probably backs up into this stream causing the water velocity to drop and letting the sand settle out.

 This is the gate on the east side of Leonard Lee Rd where the trail starts.

 Here are a couple views near the east end of the trail which is a two track.

 After about an hour hiking the sun gave way to clouds and the weather slowly became threatening as a front moved in.  Could hear thunder in the distance and it slowly worked it's way closer.  About half way back to Grange Hall Road light rain started and steadily got heavier and lightening got closer.  The temperature dropped a few degrees also.  Had to put my poncho on to keep the camera and phone dry. 

 Overall it was a nice hike.  The highlight was seeing the sand hill crane chicks and being able to photograph them.

Little Manatee River Upper Tract County Rd 579 to Gulley Creek, 2-21-16

The Little Manatee River Upper Tract extends for several miles along the Little Manatee River.  Parcels and agricultural land were purchased jointly by Hillsborough County and the Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD) 20 to 30 years ago from private land owners.  Hillsborough County manages the property. 

The map in the link below shows the area and property boundaries.
https://www.swfwmd.state.fl.us/recreation/maps/littlemanatee-upper.pdf

 Below is the start of the trail. 

The trail is a two track as shown on the USGS map but there is no sign of a trail once you enter the pasture.

Below is a newly built bridge over an un-named stream near the beginning.

From the bridge the two track trail was soggy with some areas of water that had to be waded through.

There was a pasture covered in palmettos to the south of the two track trail.

Here is where I entered the pasture. 

There were several head of cows, calves, a bull or two and a donkey.  They mainly stared at me as I made a wide arc around them. 

I use the Gaia app on an Iphone 6s plus.  I traveled through the pasture where the two track was shown on the USGS map on the app although all signs of it were gone.

In the pasture I spotted two burrowing owls.

They would fly as I slowly approached to get a  better shot.  It took quite awhile to get these photos.

At the east end of the pasture there was a fence that had to be climbed over.

East of the pasture but before entering the wooded area along Gully Creek were several tortoise holes and many tracks.  They do not show up in the photo below.  It appears someone in the past had marked the holes with 1/2" pvc pipe stakes which for the most part had fallen over.

Going down into the Gully Creek escarpment is a varied forest with palmettos, pines, oaks, and cabbage palms.

A soft rock is exposed along the edge of the escarpment in places.  I suspect it could be phosphate rock but will have to research that more.

Here is point that appears to have been used to ford Gulley Creek in the past.  It is on the path of the two track shown on the USGS map.

Another photo of Gully Creek looking in the direction of the Little Manatee River.

I did not cross Gully Creek but turned around here and headed back to the trail head.  Made another arc around the cattle and donkey in the pasture.

This is a nasty looking weed that was growing in the pasture.  It has thorns growing out of the leaves.  I am wondering if it is an invasive plant.

This bird was spotted along the two track trail on the way back to the trail head.  I have not identified it yet.

This was an interesting hike with a few challenges, mainly water, mud and high grass. 

The highlight was the photos I was able to get of the burrowing owls.

Hike in Little Manatee River State Park, 2-20-16

Started a little earlier this morning, about 7:30am.  It was in the mid 50's.  Warmed up to the mid 70's.

Did a figure 8 on the trail this morning.  Went for 7.63 miles.  The pack felt heavy today.  The trail is mostly dry now, but still has a few muddy areas with little difficulty getting around them.

One interesting site was a large dead pine tree that fell across the trail sometime this week.  Nothing would have survived where it fell.

As soon as I can get the photo of the fallen tree uploaded, I will add it to the blog.

Hike in the Weekiwachee Preserve, Feb 13, 2016

I live in Sun City Center and Weekiwachee is about 80 miles away.  Because I had to look at a site to estimate some repairs in the area, I decided to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

I left the condo about 9, went to the site, looked, got the information I needed, and took photos.  Then I drove the few miles to the Preserve.

On the 2nd and 3rd Saturdays of each month, a paved road with a parking lot is open for 1.2 miles into the preserve.  Since it was the 2nd Saturday, I was able to drive into the Preserve.

Below is the first photo I took as I was leaving the parking lot.

About a sixth of the preserve is an abandoned limerock mine with large ponds where the limerock was removed from and large mounds of overburden that was pushed off to expose the limerock.

The area that was mined has only a few trees and is mostly grass.  There are dirt two track roads and paths through the area. 

The photo below is from a large overburden mound looking northwest.

Here is a photo as I worked my way from the old mine area to the east into the wooded area of the preserve.

There was a stream shown below that crossed the road.  It was in a swampy area.

The first part of the road into the wooded area had a gravel base with what appeared to be some areas of soil cement.  The soil cement made for a hard surface although it was somewhat uneven.

The further into the woods, the two track became sandy with out any gravel or soil cement.

The name of the two track road is Bear Claw Road.  It ends at the backend of a subdivision east of the preserve.

I also took a branch two track road off of Bear Claw Road.  Didn't take the branch to end.  From the aerial map app (Gaiagps.com) it looked like it continued to county road 597 to the west.


It turned out to be the first day of bow hunting season.  I ran into two hunters all dressed in camaflouged gear.  One even had a camaflouge face mask on.  They wore boots for going through the swampy areas.  They had seen four deer but all were does.

I didn't see any deer but did see a large hog cross the road about 100 yards ahead of me.  Also three armadillos and an eagle on a dead tree roost in the distance.

Below is a photo of an old iron gate across the road.  This is one of two I saw.  As can be seen in the photo, the gate has not been closed in years because the tree is growing around the hinges.

Most of the hike was going and coming on the same path or road.  There were a couple of small loops that I was able to take.

There are several more hiking paths in between the ponds of the mined area that I did not have time to take.  The park closed at sunset plus I was getting tired after carrying the pack for almost 10 miles.  (I had put additional weight in the pack for this hike also.)

The three photos below show the area on the paths after coming out of the woods and heading for the parking lot. 

The low sun was lighting up the overburden mounds which made for a couple of interesting photos.


I had started hiking a little after noon and finished at the parking lot at 5:30pm.