Barr Hammock Preserve Hike

 

Date: 10/6/2013

Location: Gainesville, Fl

We’ve hiked the 6+ mile loop trail at Barr Hammock Preserve several times. It was Sunday morning, we didn’t feel like loading up the kayaks for a paddle or going on any long road trip to a park, so we decided to do this hike once again. The weather had been teasing us with a few cooler morning recently, but unfortunately this morning was not one of those and it was a little warm for this walk. We decided to hike this loop going counter clockwise and get the sunny northern part of the trail out of the way first. The southern side is more wooded and shady and would be more comfortable as the day warmed even more.

Being a large wetland, there were many birds to be seen out on the preserve. We also came across several alligators soaking up the warmth of the sun. One large male (about 7+ feet long) caught us off guard as we didn’t see him near the edge of the water, but he saw us and made a mad dash and buried himself in the mud and brush. We also say several mom gators with their small babies and they also dove for cover as we approached.

 

The entire hike is on an old levee that surrounds the wetlands.

 

They have added several new covered benches along the trail. There’s now three for four locations where you can sit and take in the scenery.

 

With so much water around, I’d have thought that we would have seen more snakes, but this is the only one we came across. He (or she) wasn’t too concerned about us and just stayed in this sunny spot as we passed.

 

We’ve not had any cold weather to cause any color change in all the vegetation, but with all of the fall flowers that were blooming and some of the summer plants dying off, there was some nice colors around.

Here is the GPS track from our hike at Barr Hammock

Barr Hammock Preserve Hike at EveryTrail

 

And a short YouTube video taken a several spots on the trail