January 23, 2016, Hiking in Hillsborough River State Park

It was cold (at least for Florida) and windy today.  On the drive to the park it rained on and off.  Thankfully the rain quit when I got there.  The wind was over 20 mph with the temperature around 47 deg F.  The sun started to peak through the clouds about 11 am and made for a nice contrast to the previous couple of hours of dark cloudiness.

The park is on US 301 about 12 miles north of Tampa, and 6 miles south of Zephyrhills.  The park is old and the original development was done by the CCC during the depression of the 1930's.  Some of the picnic pavilions look like they may date from that time period.  They have hand hewn roof beams.  One of the picnic pavilions was supported by cypress tree trunks that belled out at the bottom.

There is also a suspension bridge across the river that was built by the CCC.  It was closed because the trail on the other side of the river was being repaired.

The park has some very large trees, some with interesting shapes.  Here is a live oak in the picnic area.

The Hillsborough River has a short section of rapids in the park.  It is the only grade 2 rapids in the state of Florida.

The trail to the rapids goes along the river and creates a 1.2 mile loop.  There are short board walks that go out to the edge of the river and are about 10 feet above the water level.  They make for nice views.

After returning to the picnic area on the river rapids loop trail, I took the 3.4 loop Florida Trail which starts north of the river across from the picnic area.  It is a single track well used trail in fairly good shape.  Today there were some muddy sections and puddles which you could walk around with out getting your feet wet.

The south leg of this trail goes along the north bank of the river.  Here is a large old narly tree along the river.

 The north leg of the trail goes through some low lands.  It is populated with large old growth trees.  The contrast in vegetation between the Little Manatee River State Park Trail and this trail in the Hillsborough River State Park is interesting.  The trees seem to be older on this trail.  There not many pine trees.  The dominant tree is the live oak along with many cypress trees.

There were some wet and muddy sections in the north leg of the trail but it was mostly dry.

There are four primitive campsites off the north leg of the trail.  Here are a couple of photos of the sites.  Note that site C was flooded.

I spent about 4 hours on the trails here today.  The weather was a little biting due to the cool temperature and the high winds.  But the sites made it well worth it.

Below is a map and track of my hike.

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