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Off/beat

Backwoods bliss in our back yard

By JIM THORNER
Published February 27, 2005

Call it the bobcat bonus. Or the palmetto premium.

In the increasingly competitive housing market, green space means greenbacks, especially for builders and developers.

That's one of the ideas behind Connerton New Town Development, a new Land O'Lakes development whose 8,700 homes would abut 3,900 acres of state-owned nature preserve. Those nature preserves, crisscrossed by hiking, biking and horse trails, are Pasco County's best kept secret. Deer, snake, wild turkey and alligator sightings are par for the course.

From J.B. Starkey Wilderness Park near New Port Richey to the Cypress Creek Preserve in Land O'Lakes, the stretches of wilderness total more than 20,000 acres in west-central Pasco alone.

I don't know if it's our couch potato lifestyle or the compulsion to compartmentalize recreation into soccer leagues and dance classes, but the trails I frequent are almost always empty, even on a 75-degree Sunday afternoon.

Not that I'm complaining. When I glide the mountain bike between cypress swamps or rumble over pine barrens, I sometimes feel as if I'm the only guy in Yellowstone Park, gaping at geysers without the annoyance of 55-million picture snappers behind me.

But since the isolation probably won't last, here's a few cautionary tales from the trail I hope will help you enjoy the Pasco backwoods without serious bodily injury, dehydration or death by deer antler.

DOG DAY AFTERNOON: I'll not soon forget the lout who let his Hound from Hell run loose not once, but twice, with dire results for my sneaker (shredded) and foot (bloodied). The only consolation is the guy must have sobered up after paying a $500 fine for letting his chomping mutt run free.

THE SIGN-IN SHEET SCORPION: On the Cypress Creek Preserve, they installed a metal box on a post, enclosing a clipboard and sign-in sheet. Knock before you enter. A few months ago I slid my hand inside just as a scorpion scampered. I hear all those horror stories about scorpion bite paralysis are folklore. Still, nothing spoils a Sunday afternoon of pedaling like a suppurating finger and a body wracked by chills.

I'M NOT AN ANIMAL; I'M A HUMAN BEING Another none-too-comforting run-in came as I ventured a mile farther than usual into a cypress swamp. It was dry season. The swamp bottom was crossable. I heard brush crackling beyond the property boundary and spotted a hunter, rifle at the ready, ready to stalk my bicycle as if it were a buck. "Hellllooooo!" I called out. He warned me it was a poor idea to hang around a swamp in the middle of hunting season. Yes, yes, point well taken.

PATHS OF GORY: You never know what you'll run into. Three years ago it was high school kids making whoopee in a tent (they fled after I'd passed, flinging beer bottles and prophylactics). I've swerved the bike around a coiled rattlesnake and a couple of gators. Worst of all was the corpse sheriff's deputies found on that very path. Luckily - if that's the right word - investigators said someone had dumped the dead guy there from a passing car.

Hold on, hold on. Don't hang the bike back on the rack. It's better than it sounds. After five years of off-road biking on the trails of Pasco, the positives outweigh the negatives about 10 to 1.

For those willing to put up with minor discomforts, the rewards are great. Starting around Thanksgiving, the high water retreats; the trails dry out; wild flowers bloom, and wild turkeys trot.

Deer leap through the brush at your approach, a flash of white tail in their wake. Black racers slither like dark whiplashes into the grass. Pine needles perfume the air. The sun warms but doesn't roast.

Bring a bottle of water, maybe a stick to rap any aggressive dogs on the muzzle, and enjoy one of Pasco's last free rides.

[Last modified February 27, 2005, 00:13:19]