By Brandt Mannchen
On Saturday, March 12, 2022, the Houston Sierra Club hiked 4.5 miles on the Lone Star Hiking Trail (LSHT) for the first time in 25 months.
I was nervous about leading the hike, but my Sierra companions made me feel at ease. We admired the early Spring wildflowers growing at the Sam Houston National Forest (SHNF) District Ranger Office, including violets, Lyre-leaf Sage, bluets, Crow Poison, and Red Buds.
It was cold, 34 degrees, but sunny. We gathered and then shuttled a car to Osborn Road, where we would end our hike, and drove back to the trailhead near Lake Conroe to begin the hike.
As we hiked along the LSHT, I pointed out beautiful blooming Carolina Jessamine vines, a large Sassafras, and an Upland Hardwood forest with many Southern Red Oaks. This Upland Hardwood forest was a rare treat to see in SHNF due to past logging and management for pine trees.
We walked through a LSHT buffer zone that had been used in the 2010’s during a U.S. Forest Service project to protect the LSHT from logging impacts. The Sierra Club is collaborating with the FS to get a similar buffer zone in place to prevent mulching along the LSHT and its viewshed.
We crossed woods, roads, ephemeral streams, multi-use trails, Forest Road 204, and climbed pine covered ridges, with Red-cockaded Woodpecker cavity trees, and eventually descended the slope toward the Green Branch and Caney Creek bottomlands. We had a relaxed lunch before entering these moist forests.
These floodplains have an entirely different suite of trees and plants and include oak, sweetgum, and elm flats with Dwarf Palmettoes and other water tolerant trees. Backwater ponds and sloughs filled with images of reflected trees, like Water Hickory, were seen near Cany Creek.
We crossed foot bridges, the much larger and structurally complex Cany Creek Bridge, jumped across swales filled with water, and tiptoed through muddy stretches of the LSHT. All great fun and an adventure to cherish on this beautiful, halcyon, day.
We finished our day by watching a group of Boy Scouts and their leaders march past us on their way to their vistas of the future.
The Sierra Club is back and is glad to be leading outings again. Hope to see you soon in the forest and outdoors!
Photo: Winnie Hamilton and Janet Beck enjoying the outing.