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.