2020-02-15: Tarkiln Bayou

I returned to college this past January, and as such didn't have much time to walk or write posts. With the current situation, however, free time is abundant, so I'd like to share what I've been doing over the past few months. This is the only post about what I did at college, walking a 5-mile trail in Tarkiln Bayou State Park in the Florida panhandle. The environment was quite different from anything I was used to back in New York, and made for an interesting hike.

I took this hike with a group from my college. I don't often participate in - or enjoy - group hikes. I stopped for about ten minutes at Dupont Point to take pictures, and when I went back, the group had disappeared, leaving me to wander the shoreline on my own. I moseyed through the bayou for some time before finding an actual trail, but thankfully made it back to the group before finishing. A fire later plagued the area as we prepared to leave.

Images in this post may not format correctly on all devices. I apologize for any inconvenience.

A lone pine tree silhouetted beneath a clear blue sky on a cool Florida day.

A dense palm underbrush stretches towards Bauer Road, which bisects the state park.

The first leg of the hike was characterized by tall, well-spaced pine trees and palm underbrush.

Multicolored lilypads filled pools along the partially flooded trail.

Mid-February bring new spring growth along the Gulf Coast.

A half-full moon shone brightly over the tops of the pine trees.

Although the forest floor was mostly covered in palm bushes, a few brave young pine saplings still managed to rise up.

A view of hardwood forest on the other side of Perdido Bay.

Waves turn straight as they roll out to shore.

Trees and swampy shores line the interior of Perdido Bay.

Remnants of old trees and wood structures, often covered in barnacles, littered the forested shoreline.

View of the Perdido Bay Bridge on US-98, from about 2.5 miles away.

The second leg of the hike alternated between the sunny beach and the broadleaf forest that lined it.

A long-dead pine tree braves the ocean wind.

A six-mile view of condos on Perdido Key.

The Perdido Towers, seen from seven miles away, near the Alabama border on Perdido Key.

Wave-crafted dunes lined the shallow bay floor.

Waves along the larger section of the bay were generally quite calm.

This battered bush is the only woody vegetation on the spit of Dupont Point.

These tiny holes in the sand were more numerous under the water than on the shore, presumably made by some sort of burrowing tidal creature.

Two-inch sandy cliffs were continuously reformed and rebroken by tiny waves on Dupont Point.

One seagull stood to guard the outermost tip of the point.

These hole-littered submarine dunes vanished as soon as they reached dry land.

Looking back along the shoreline from Dupont Point.

The blindingly white sands of the Florida Panhandle.

Looking down the curved beach revealed a return to the pine/palm forests from earlier.

Driftwood on the beach, covered in all kinds of tidal animals and their leftover shells.

One barnacle-encrusted stump remnant stood significantly farther out in the water than all the others.

An empty seedpod of some sort rose feet above the palm underbrush.

Towards the latter portion of the hike, haze from a nearby fire began to fill the air.

More posts are on the way, as I've been quite active since returning from college, taking care to hike rural roads and unused trails away from other people.