All Because of Ice

The thermometer read 33 degrees this morning when we got up. "That must feel incredibly cold to people in Houston," said Andy, as the Weather Channel told of -46 degrees in International Falls, a reading at which water tossed into the air freezes to snow instantly. We assured the family back home that we wouldn't head north into the next storm. Route #105 took us east into the sun, past small ramshackle farms, roadside stands selling honey, trailer sales lots and muddy oil drilling service areas. "This is the Old South," said Andy. Here and there stretched broad expanses of mixed pine forests, feathery needles bright against leafless hardwoods. It certainly wasn't the Texas of cowboys and Indians.

"This is bayou country," I told Andy, as we crossed the Trinity River. Moss dripped grey threads from trees along the water. Trailer farm houses dotted small patches along the road, with brown fields of cut hay, black tilled dirt and green grass. "No water shortages here," I said. We passed the Church on Wheels in a muddy parking lot. Three turkey vultures circled overhead.

We drove through Cleveland and Dayton. In Saratoga we passed the Bible Tabernacle and the Church of the Thicket, both sheet metal buildings with mud parking lots. The Jesus Temple was a rusted trailer.

Houses and trailers raised on cinder blocks indicated a high water table in this part of Texas. "In Beaumont most of the houses were raised," said Andy. "They told me years ago it was mostly to keep snakes out. You notice none of them have basements."

We turned into Big Thicket National Preserve, Loblolly Unit, but the clay road into the extension unit, past oil wells and a drilling company, was soft with water-filled pot holes.
Unlike most national parks, Big Thicket consists of 15 scattered areas covering 107,000 acres in eastern Texas. The units surround the Neches River and some of its feeder creeks, areas described as "muggy and buggy." Called "an American ark" and "a biological crossroads of North America," biological influences collide here: bottomland hardwoods and cypress sloughs, palmetto hardwood flats, wetland pine savanna and slope forest. In 1981, the United Nations named the area an International Biosphere Reserve to measure human impact on the wide variety of plants and animals from southeastern swamps to eastern forests to central plains to southwestern deserts.

"That's why they saved it," said Andy, "and more can be purchased for about $1,000 an acre."

The ranger at Big Thicket Headquarters and Visitor Center recommended hikes in the Turkey Creek Unit, where small elevation changes made a huge difference from river to savanna environment and from the dark depths of baygall to the open grasslands of wetland pine savanna.

"I read that you have coral snakes here," said Andy.

"Yes," answered the ranger, "but you don't need to worry. It's a little too cold for any of them to be out and about."

That was reassuring. At least five other poisonous varieties made Big Thicket their home. Another advantage of traveling in the winter!

We followed the Kirby Nature Trail, Inner Loop, Cypress Loop, Turkey Creek Trail and Sandhill Loop, and Outer Loop for seven miles through Slope Forest, Cypress Slough and uplands of loblolly pine, the southern tree prized for its long, straight boards.

Following narrow roads through the back country, we found the Hickory Creek Savannah Unit with a one-mile Sundew Trail. A different environment of scattered pine, this unit featured low undergrowth. Andy poked at the nests of fire ants at the base of several trees.

At the northern end of the Turkey Creek Unit, the half mile Pitcher Plant Trail featured hundreds of insect-eating pitcher plants growing naturally in the bog. "I don't think I've ever seen one in the wild," said Andy, "much less hundreds of them." Many appeared shriveled and discolored, probably nipped by frost.
Our last stop at Beech Creek Unit farther north included a half-mile up Beech Woods Trail through longleaf pine uplands.
Although we didn't see animals on our hikes, animals and plants of many regions live together in Big Thicket, largely because of the Ice Age, when continental glaciers far to the north pushed many species southward. Once similar thickets spread over 3.5 million acres. Less than 300,000 remain, of which about a third is nationally protected.

"This was an unexpected, pleasant surprise," said Andy. "I had never planned to come here." Only the threats of ice storms up north had prompted that decision. Ironic that it was due to ice in the first place!