Six separate area parks make up the Hillsborough County owned Wilderness Park conglomerate: Morris Bridge, Flatwoods, Sargeant, Dead River, Trout Creek and Veterans Memorial Park. The area is composed mainly of pine flatwoods, hardwood flood plain forest, upland hardwood hammocks, saw palmetto, oak scrub, and cypress swamps.
Trailheads are at Morris Bridge at 106 acres, Trout Creek at 42 acres, and Flatwoods at 5,400 acres, and all three comprise one large biking venue. The northern-most park, Flatwoods, is best known for its seven-mile paved loop for bikers, walkers, and roller-bladers. They even provide cold water in coolers in several locations around the loop. The access trails from Flatwoods and Downs Blvd. are also paved and can be biked to add five more miles to your ride. Here's my post on Flatwoods.
Today we biked the 15 mile loop mountain bike trail. It runs through lovely forest as seen below, with palmetto the predominant underbrush. The trail is in very good condition with just a few sandy areas on the east side of the Morris Bridge highway.
This trail is pretty well marked with sequentially numbered white posts marked "Main Trail" and often with arrows denoting when the trail makes a turn.
The tricky area is when you get to the highway. If you are biking clockwise, turn right onto Morris Bridge Road, and riding the paved bike lane shoulder, cross the Hillsborough River on the highway bridge, and then turn into the first driveway on your left (across the road) and the trail continues straight ahead when that access driveway turns to the left. You'll see signs and find yourself on what looks like a gravel road. If you are biking counter-clockwise, turn right onto the highway, bike over the bridge, and a few hundred yards beyond is a white sign on a tree pointing to the trail (on your left, so carefully cross the road.)
Next time we'll venture off onto some of the side trails and explore!
This was a wonderful biking experience -- second only to the Santos Trailhead trails out of Ocala. The SWAMP Mountain Bike Club is to be commended on their fine work! How I wish we had mountain biking venues like this in the Chicago area!
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