I drove into the Pope Bend Trailhead noticing a couple of horse trailers already in the lot. The horses and riders were already out on the trails. It was good to see the horses back as they had been banned due to the floods. I followed the usual preparations of boots, hat, camera belt, camera and hiking poles and set off along Buckeye. The first thing that I saw were the trails had all been dressed and were wonderfully smooth (for trails).
The walking was just great and I walked along accompanied by birdsong of different kinds. Seems like there were a lot more birds than usual. From Buckeye I took Pecan Bottom which is home to many large Pecan Trees the most famous of which has its own sign which indicates it is over 200 years old. it is huge and although I took a picture, I cannot do it justice as I can’t get the entire tree into the frame.
From Pecan Bottom, I walked along Coyote Road and met the horse and riders as they headed back to the parking lot. I snapped a couple of pictures of them as they passed each calling out a cheery greeting.
THe going got a little tricky where Coyote Road and Roadrunner intersected as the trails had a major washout at this point. I was able to squeeze through enough to continue along Coyote Road which at the point turns into a major uphill climb all the way until the trail intersects with Yaupon.
This was the home stretch although it by itself, was almost 3 miles of walking. I made steady progress and was very grateful that the trails were sheltered with tall trees as the day was growing hot. I spotted a few flowers along the way including the wild variety of the Lantana. It looks exactly the same as the common garden variety.
Yaupon is an interesting trail to hike. It has many ups and downs and is shaded for most of the way. It helped that it too had been recently dressed which made the walking so much more comfortable. I passed one other couple going in the opposite direction (I never pass anyone going in the same direction) and finally made it back to the parking lot.
Altogether, I covered almost 6 miles and arrived back to the car to find that the horse trailers had all gone and I had the lot to myself. As usual, I was totally sweat soaked as the temperature was well above 90 degrees but I knew that a bottle of water and a Starbucks Grande Latte and I would be just fine.
Although many of the trail pictures look very similar, they are all of different parts of the trails. There is one picture of a dead moth that I had never seen before. All in all, another very enjoyable way to spend a few hours.
Again, as with all of these pictures, if you click on anyone of them, it will enlarge it and then you can use the side arrows to move along. Use the “Escape” key to get back to normal.