Alligators & Birding at Brazos Bend State Park (Texas)

I have to admit that if there was one state I never thought I would hike in, it would be Texas. Well, I’m in Texas, & I would definitely not call today’s walks hikes, even tho Texas Parks & Wildlife does. They were walks, strolls, meanders thru Texas’s version of wilderness.

There is certainly a lot of horizon in Texas. Don’t come here for the mountains, ‘coz there ain’t any. Oh, I think there are some on the western edge, but we’re in Houston (& took a side-trip to Dallas earlier this week), and the only elevation gain we’ve seen is on the 3-level freeway interchanges where you can look as far as the eye can see and swear you can see Canada to the north. When we were in Whistler this summer, we encountered a couple of gals from Texas wondering where the escalator was on the gentle incline of the “easy” trail we were on. Now I know why they were struggling. There are no hills here. It’s flat-flat-flat! I think I made my point. It’s flat in this, I dubbed, the Land of the Uninterrupted Horizon.

I think hiking books for Texas are ironic. My hiking experience involves mountains, or hills, or waterfalls (which imply hills) or some sort of reason to actually wear hiking boots instead of runners. I didn’t even pack my boots for this trip. But nevertheless, we did receive a couple of Texas hiking books for Christmas, and in one of the books is actually one of the walks we took today, the 40-Acre Lake Trail at Brazos Bend State Park (near Houston) which features, among other things, a vibrant alligator habitat.

Alligators?? Now that’s not something I’ve seen on a hike or walk or meander before. I’m trying to remember if I’ve ever seen one in the wild before. Maybe in Florida many years ago, but I honestly can’t remember. I remember seeing wild manatees, but I don’t remember if I saw alligators.

But we saw alligators today.

First we saw them from a distance, and then one swam under the little fishing pier at 40 Acre Lake, so we got closer-up views…

 

There were all sorts of signs & literature about “alligator etiquette” which include such information as staying 30’ away from one of these guys. But there were no signs warning the alligators to stay away from us. There were a couple on the side of the path every now & then. One was a little too close for comfort. We didn’t “shoot” him (w/ the camera), but we took pictures of this moss-covered guy:

 

I wonder if moss is itchy.

There was other wildlife there, as well. Lots & lots of birds. We probably saw about 35 different species of birds & also squirrels & turtles. Here are some of our various pictures from the day:

Carolyn & Rich looking at some micro birds.

 Snowy Egret flying over a couple of Moor Hens (?) 

Moor Hen?

A couple of turtles sunning themselves in the primordial ooze.

The path along 4 Acre Lake

Picnic lunch w/ Carolyn’s portable picnic table

Hale Lake is an oxbow, & this is the tip.  Somewhere, toward the beginning of this walk, I was really starting to miss mountains. I was craving mountains; yes, even aching for mountains. But a funny thing happened. The more I looked for at at the birds, the less I missed the mountains.

Hale Lake

 

Red Shouldered Hawk

Anhinga (nope, I never heard of it either, but he’s beautiful!)

 

Carolyn, Rich & me in the gazebo on the tip of the oxbow

This log was full of turtles, wall-to-wall, until somebody (OK, me)  somehow scared about 1/2 of them off…

Hale Lake looks like a river, but it’s not.

Haha. At the Park Headquarters.

After our 2nd walk today, the Hale Lake Loop Trail, Carolyn asked me if I felt like I got some exercise today. Um… Activity, yes. Movement, yes. Exercise, no. I have to admit, I am not a birder. I have places to go & trails to hike & summits & waterfalls to get to. I like birds & I appreciate birds. I often would like to kinda know what I’m looking at besides a generic bird or a woodpecker or some sort of hawk or maybe it’s a falcon. I know eagles and black capped chickadee-dee-dees, but not much in between. Birding is not exercise, but you know, sometimes it’s not about target heart rates and burnt calories. Sometimes it’s about slowing down to not only see the tiny micro birds in the scrub next to the path, but taking up the time to learn their names. And isn’t it interesting that it took a stroll on a path in the land of uninterrupted horizons for me to see that (probably b/c I didn’t have anything else to look at, LOL). I think I’m gonna slip the bird book that my mom gave me into my pack when we get home…

Snowshoe!!

Last night I did something I’ve been wanting to do for years. I went showshoeing.

At night.

With a group of strangers.

OK, those last two aren’t things I’ve wanted to do for years, but it was fine.

My feet in snowshoes – after the hike. If you look closely, you can see my orange Nike+ chip in my right boot (camera left), in the middle of the lace loop. Yes, I’m obsessed w/ my Nike+ chip.

Have y’all heard of meetup.com? From their website:

“Meetup is the world's largest network of local groups. Meetup makes it easy for anyone to organize a local group or find one of the thousands already meeting up face-to-face. More than 2,000 groups get together in  local communities each day, each one with the goal of improving themselves or their communities.

“Meetup's mission is to revitalize local community and help people around the world self-organize. Meetup believes that people can change their personal world, or the whole world, by organizing themselves into groups that are powerful enough to make a difference.”

So, inspired by some of my SparkPeople friends who have been having a blast w/ their local meetup groups, I joined a few local Vancouver groups, and I went on my first meetup last night. The Outdoor Girls went to Mt. Seymour’s SnowFit snowshoe fitness … event(?), class(?), thing: “For those looking for a great workout, don't miss SnowFit! This focused 90 minute fitness hike held on Tuesday evenings is geared for those who are looking for a beginner to intermediate fitness routine within a group setting.” It was more like 60 min. on the trail, but it was AWESOME!

It was a cool night – not overly cold, but I was glad I left my gortex shell in the snowshoe hut b/c we quickly warmed up.  We went on a fairly easy hike, by hiking standards down by Flower Lake. Since it has been such a mild winter, Flower Lake was not frozen over. It was icy w/ a layer of fresh snow on it, but not frozen over.

 (Click on the map to see it larger.)

We headed out from the snowshoe hut down the dotted Trail A (Goldie Lake Loop, in the summer), & then took a right turn on Trail I, picked up Trail H, & then left turn on Trail G & went around Flower Lake a second time. (Goldie Lake is by trail marker D on the map above)

There were about 15-20 people there, including the 7 from the meetup group. We split into two groups – the more intense work-out group, which focused on keeping a higher cardio rate by running and stuff, and the other group, the moseying group. Guess which one I was in?

Only because it was my first time on snowshoes.

I wanted to see what it was all about before I tried to get a real butt-kicking of a work-out.

And I guess the more intense group was a butt-kick, b/c twice people from that group joined ours – including girls who were there w/ people in the Cardio Core Bootcamp!

I have signed up for the March 2 SnowFit, and I think I’m gonna try the more intense level, comfortable in the knowledge that I can go back to the Moseyers if & when needed…

So, what did I think of snowshoeing??

I LOVED IT!!

Ohmygoodness, it was so much fun! It’s basically hiking – in the snow – w/ big, flat things tied to the bottom of your boots. There’s a claw-like crampon-type thing under the snowshoe to give you traction so you don’t slip around very much.

Like I said above, the night was cool (probably around the freezing mark, if not a little colder), but we quickly warmed up. I was wearing my running pants (heavier than tights) w/ my waterproof pants over. I had my long-john top, then a long-sleeve running top, & a fleece vest, which I jettisoned at our 2nd water break. My best investment – a fleece headband (under $3 at the Bargain Shop!) that covers my ears. So much better than a tuque. I lose so much heat thru my head that I get really hot in a tuque. This was perfect. I wore my old hiking boots b/c my new ones are low-tops, like runners, & they were fine.

Happy Nancy after the hike, sporting the loaner head lamp.

Y’all. Snowshoeing is easy. If you can walk, you can snowshoe. Of course we didn’t have much powder. Only 7cm, & that was the first since NOVEMBER! And the Olympics start here in 9 days? Come on!

And it was beautiful. Even at night. There was snow in the trees, every now & then sprinkling down on us to cool our red faces. Our headlamps lit the trail & the surrounds, making the trail markers and the reflective strips on everyone’s fitness clothing glow.  Every now & then we would look up & see 5 or 6 dots of light coming towards us – the other group.

And then, as we were walking back to the snowshoe hut at the end, we came to a clearing:

Ah… Nature! The Fairyland lights of Metro Vancouver on a beautiful, clear night.

Have I said how much fun this was?? I can’t wait ‘til March 2 when we do it again. And maybe I can get up there sometimes before that in the daylight.