Lake Wales scrub areas

Each July I head up to Lake Placid for the Caladium Festival, and each year I find more places on the Lake Wales Ridge to explore. This year I finally made it to Highlands Hammock State Park on Friday afternoon. Of all the parks all over the state from the panhandle to the Keys that I have visited or camped at, I had never been to our oldest state park.  Surprisingly this park has a county road running right through the middle of it. I really enjoyed touring the Civilian Conservation Corps Museum as I have known some men who had participated in their youth. Glen Simmons worked on building roads out west of Homestead like
Loveland Rd (217th Ave.) to earn some money during the depression. It was really interesting to see the tools and the every day items of life from that time.

Old oak stump that was concrete filled, either that or a Hobbit crypt.

Really big poison ivy!

 

 
I spent very little time at the Caladium Festival the next morning, though this year I did take the first bus tour and I had of course bought more Caladium bulbs. It was interesting to hear that they use the water from Lake Istokpoga to water the Caladium fields and have a unique boring system to spread the water through the fields without piping it. 

 

One of the Lake Placid wall murals

After the Festival I headed out to check out some scrub areas, Lake June in Winter State Park is nearby, so I headed over there. This park has an iron ranger to collect fees. It has a trail that heads into the forest on one side which is a nice loop trail. I found it interesting that they had put down panels of wooden boards flush with the ground for some wet areas of the trail. From the parking area you can see the lake and there is a pretty broad area that I presume is kept mown where you can walk down to the lake. They say you can bring a light canoe or kayak to launch but it is a long walk, so a canoe cart would be handy. When I did make it down to the lake, occasionally hollering to alert bear, there was a boat moored just out of sight with a couple relaxing on it. (Probably wondering what I was yelling about.)

                                                                       

 

Lake June in Winter SP, view from parking area.

This area has numerous lakes, and they all seem to be heavily used. On the tour I learned that there are two types of lakes, high sandy bottom clear lakes, and low tannin stained lakes. Water skiing and racing boats around the lakes seems to be very popular, so it's not very conducive to canoeing or kayaking from what I saw.

                                                                                                                  

Turtle egg?

The other trail at Lake June is across the sandy scrub, it was quite hot and a thunderstorm was moving in so I headed back to the hotel for a midday break.

   Next on my list was Carter Creek, which is an F.W.C. area, but the directions didn't work. I then headed a little south to find Jack Creek, with South Florida Water Management as the land manager. No luck there either, a neighbor told me that FWC had purchased the adjoining land and fenced and gated the road off. 

    So I headed back to find Carter Creek. It turns out one of the roads, M.L.K. Jr. Blvd. no longer intersected with S. Highlands Ave. as was given in the directions on their website. As I approached the Sebring railway station I found Center St. so I turned right, (I had satellite photos of the area), sure enough, about a block down there was M.L.K. Jr. Blvd. and then once I was on Arbuckle Creek Rd. everything proceeded as planned. It was now late afternoon, so lighting was much better for photographing. There is also a National Wildlife Refuge in the area but this isn't open to the public.

Tiny oaks.

Every State Park, Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) land, and any other public land is posted with Be Bear Aware signs. So no quiet hiking up here. 

 Pea vines were in bloom in all locations.

Cassius blue butterfly.

This beetle was having a hard time getting up out of the four inch deep tire tracks in the sand, it kept falling over onto it's back, so I helped him up. Later I saw one had gotten eaten out on the sand.

 Carter Creek FWC WEA is part of the FWC Royce Unit up above Lake Istokpoga. FWC is buying up cattle land in this area to save endangered species, both plant and animal, and restore the lands back to native Lake Wales Ridge scrub. Last year I volunteered at one of the Royce Unit sites planting out scrub oaks. 




Tortoise tracks across the sand.

Frankly, I don't know how they drive in this sand, four wheel drive helps.

This time I ended up staying until sundown which was nice, and then had some deer show up to see me off. Two six point bucks, the one looked pretty thin. I figure they were about a quarter mile off, so no good close up photos.



On my way home I stopped at the Lake Placid Scrub area, another FWC area, this is due north of Archbold on the north side of SR 70. It has a fee, with an iron ranger for collecting, but fee free if you are over 65 yrs. old. I found the walk in entrance, no horseback riding here, and headed off down the trail.

 Our native Commelina sp., it has a larger flower than the exotic that shows up in lawns. The blue flowers don't last long, I noticed on the way out they were already closed.

 Lots of blue and lavender flowers in bloom in this area.

 Rhexia sp. I think this is a different species than the ones at Lake June.

 Big tracks in the sand, looked like bear.

View of Lake Placid from the viewing tower, scrub jays flock was to left, in the trees.

 All these areas had gotten rain, but so far I had dodged it. The rains make it a little easier to walk in the deep sugar sands. Here I saw gopher tortoise and scrub jays, but didn't walk all the way down to Lake Placid. I did hear something large moving in the brush, as I was frequently making noises to alert them, but I don't think it was a bear. Lots of interesting tracks in the sand here.

This is a game trail cutting across the road.  On my walk out I came across otter tracks.




Gopher tortoise

  My final stop was Archbold Biological Research Station, I had my picnic lunch first, dropped off a donation and filled out the required form for using the trail.

 Every time I stop at Archbold it seems there are ripe grapes, Vitis rotundifolia, right along the road, very tempting, but this is animal food.

 
    I was hoping to see some recent burns but everything was pretty much grown out. I didn't have any scrub jays monitor my trip down the trail, though I heard them a short distance away. Running short on time, I turned around and headed home.  


Milkweed species.