Riverbanks Adventure Forum

Buck Island Pond – Beautiful Pine Ridge – Trailwalker Week 4

// December 16th, 2009 // Adventures, Florida, Florida Trailwalker, Hiking

 

Trail through Pine Scrub 2 by Riverbanksoutdoorstore

My fourth week of the Trailwalker program and my 8^th hike was a 2.0 mile interpretive loop around Buck Island Pond in the Goethe State Forest.  This fairly new trail is not very long but captures your interest at it leads you through a diversity of habits such at wet prairie, cypress dome, oak hammock, up a pine ridge, down a pine scrub then eventually to a boggy piney lowland as you make your way around the pond.

I spent my first week as a Trailwalker in the Goethe State Forest. On the brochure a boardwalk to the “Goethe Giant”, a +900 year old giant cypress tree, caught my eye and I have wanted to return to Goethe to find it.   As I reached the forest, I realized I left the brochure behind, so I pulled into the first trailhead I passed to grab another one.  As I drove up onto Buck Island Pond, I grabbed the brochure, spotted some butterflies and then started taking their photos.  “Well this trail is only two miles,” I ponder,  ”it won’t take too long to hike.   I will still have time to find the Goethe Giant.” 

The trail starts out at a boardwalk attached to a viewing area overlooking the wet prairie of Buck Island Pond.  A very pretty spot indeed and a great viewing area for birders.  As I leave the boardwalk into a shady Oak Hammock, I welcome the cool shade on this 95 deg summer day.  The trail begins to lead me around the pond.  From the Oak Hammock the trail winds into a small cypress dome.  I carefully navigate the knees in the trail to a scenic viewing area of a wetland on the edge of the wet prairie.   I notice pickerel weed and swamp potato plants among other swamp plants indicative of the boggy conditions here. 

I turn back out on the trail as it leads me upward into an Oak Hammock. The trail is almost whimsical as it playfully takes me up and down several small hills before releasing me in to a beautiful pine ridge. The young slender trees tower into the blue sky and the forest floor was a carpet of pine needles.  “Oh I could live here!” I spurt out as I breathe in the fresh pine smell.  I envision a small clearing on the hill with a log cabin.  “Yes, someday I will have that!”  I walk slowly through this section of the trail savoring every moment.

Eventually the trail starts heading down. The pine forest gives way to a pine scrub with the understory covered with saw palmetto.  Still very pretty indeed.  Sparse bushes of wild sumac appear here and there with maroon colored berries taking form.   On the right there is a boardwalk out into a piney wetland.  The interpretive brochure mentions carnivorous pitcher plants!  I walk out there….to my disappointment I did not see them.  However, I find out later that another fellow trailwalker member did!  I must go back.

The trail end shortly after the boardwalk as it leads you back up into a sand hill and then back to the parking lot.   What a pretty day!  Now on to the Goethe Giant…that I would not have even known about had I not started the trailwalker program……the journey continues….

View more photos of Buck Island Pond on Flickr

Other related Trailwalker posts: Goethe (Week 1), Lake McKethan (week 2), Holly Hammock (week 2), Johnsons Pond (week 3), Oxbow Nature Trail (week 3), Etoniah State Forest (wk 3)