Deep in a Hackberry Thicket, March 2009

The history of the Olmos Basin has been well documented elsewhere, so I will only include a brief summary here. Over the past hundred fifty years or so, the land that is now under the care of the Headwaters Coalition just east of the Olmos Dam has been cleared multiple times primarily for use as pasture and farming.

The current woods are about thirty to fifty years old.  When land in this part of South Texas and into the Texas Hill Country is allowed to grow over, hackberry are usually the first trees to grow in abundance. Much of the floor of Olmos Basin on both sides of the dam are now covered with hackberry thickets.

At the end of March 2009 a few weeks after my trek along Olmos Creek, I made my way into one of the densest of these thickets. Following are some of the photos I took on this adventure:

This is a 180 degree panoramic.