Saturday, April 6, 2013

Wooded Escape on Little Cypress Creek

After lunch at The Bake Shoppe and Cafe in Cypress, we decided to explore the Little Cypress Creek Preserve for the first time. What a treat! While Harris County's web site refers to it as a "58-acre undeveloped park site", it is really a gorgeous wooded gem along Little Cypress Creek.

What this park lacks in play equipment and picnic tables (there are none), it makes up for with its lovely hiking trails among the ponds and along Little Cypress Creek. The ponds were mostly empty due to the persistent dry weather, but the recent rains had the creek flowing fairly strongly.

We spotted a little snake and a number of turtles sunning themselves as we followed the creek. In the woods we saw cardinals, jays, chickadees, woodpeckers, and a hawk. On the "maybe" list were a bluebird and a brown thrasher.

We spent a couple of hours exploring the wooded trails and thoroughly enjoyed every minute. The weather was lovely and we needed to burn off the delicious chocolate chip cookies from the Bake Shoppe. 

This is definitely my new favorite patch of wilderness relatively close to home. If you're on the northwest side of Houston and looking for an outdoor escape, you could do much worse than losing yourself here for an hour or two.