Houston's weather started getting better.... 'From more pleasant in the evenings' to staying pleasant the entire day that we decided on a hike to place nearby. Having heard a lot and subsequently reading up a lot on the Lone Star trail. We decided to do one of the shorter loops of the trail, the North wilderness loop. The map showed this trail passing through the wilderness area and we were definitely not disappointed!We started early in the morning heading north on I-45 under a steadily increasing rain. By the time we reached the Sam Houston National Forest Office, it was a steady downpour. We found some maps in the office and some advice to watch out for aggressive water snakes hanging from tree branches. The assurance that it was not very poisonous did not help as a slight display of aggression would be equally fatal in our case :)... We parked our car in the parking lot #3 which is on the left of FM 149. And armed with the new maps, trail directions, compass and water bottles, we took the trail towards the north east direction. This was the only visible trail from the parking lot.
The rain turned very friendly and slowed to a pleasant drizzle as soon as we got out from the car
and proceeded on the trail. It was beautiful all around with rain droplets glistening from leaves and other greenery all around. But still we were walking on a cleared pathway and scenic though it was; couldn't be called wilderness.
We proceeded on the trail clicking away at flowers, purple colored berries (pretty n poisonous looking) and some interesting webs with rain drops on them.
Photos of the fine webs which caught our attention and at us while walking through the trail :), captured from various angles! The first photo shows how thin the web looks from the side angle...
The rain drops in addition to getting into a lot of our photos were also managing to get into our shoes wetting our socks and pants and we were soon walking in squelching shoes...
While we went around an hour waiting for the wilderness, we came upon a road. Hoping it was FS 231 and crossing it would lead us to wilderness (as mentioned in the trail notes), we stopped a passing car to confirm if it was FS 231. To our surprise, he mentioned that it was small lane called hidden forest! Now this was in the opposite direction to the North Wilderness trail we had planned to do. We had got lost even before we hit the wilderness :), we then retraced our steps to find the trail of our plans!
Coming back to the Parking lot, we searched for nearby trails and found one right across the road towards the west. This was indeed a trail of wilderness with the sky being completely blocked from view under the dense foliage.
There was a board indicating 'Little Lake Creek Wilderness' on the entrance and we entered the trail after completing the registration.The trail was full of wild mushrooms in various colors, dead trees and spider webs cutting across the trail giving us a feeling that it must have been a reasonably loooong time before someone had passed through this trail!
One of the dying trees, exposing its red bark inside looked like a dragon with its mouth open showing its pink palate! The trees being dead and damp did not stop it from firing our imagination :)...
The trail lead us to an intersection with the Pole Creek on the right and Little lake creek loop on the left. We took the left as mentioned in the trail description. This took us further into wilderness and we were guided by trail markings on aluminum sheets pinned up on trees.
Even more helpful were the ribbons (the below pic has around 4 of these ribbons!)
tied to the trees making sure we did not lose the trail. We went on for more than 3 hours in the trail and did not still come across the elusive FS 231 and neither was there any mention of the North Wilderness loop that we had planned to hike.We came across a pond towards the left of the trail and following the trail markings we reached the second board of the trail which said 'Little Lake Creek trail' pointing in both directions.
This meant we were still on the same Little lake creek trail and had missed the north wilderness intersection! Reading the maps and understanding the description of the trail was a bigger adventure than the actual trail :)... To make things more difficult, the trail description mentions 'crossing bridges' as markings while we found these bridges ALL along the way in various stages of decay!So we decided to head back as we had no idea about the Little Lake trail and how farther away it was going to take us from Parking Lot #3. It was a fabulous hike amidst the wilderness under the slight drizzle and would have been perfect if we had managed to complete the trail loop as planned.
Next time we will be armed with a lot more information than just the trail maps and notes and hopefully complete the North Wilderness trail....
