So Much To See Before A Storm

Friday, July 13, 2012

John James Park*, Upland natural surface and paved trails

Today's photos:

Isolated thunderstorms were moving into the area when I left home to go for my walk this afternoon. I had occasionally been checking the weather radar and knew my time on the trail would likely be limited before the storms arrived. Once on the trail, I kept an eye on the clouds.

As can be seen in the photos, I was surrounded by the most remarkable beauty and wonder imaginable. Eventually, I could hear the distant rumble of thunder and knew it was time to return to the car. With all that I was encountering, it was difficult to force myself to turn back toward the parking lot, but getting caught out on the trail in a thunderstorm is too great a risk.

June was a very dry month. It is a welcome relief to have the rain return this month. The wildlife will continue to thrive and it will bring even more to experience on future walks.


* As a side note, due to the construction of a new, higher bridge over Salado Creek on Rittiman Rd just to the east of the entrance to John James Park, it is not easy to access the park. However, the park is still accessible and very much worth the effort.

John James Park, Salado Creek Bed Dirt Trails

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Today's photos:

If one takes the time to walk down the slope from the upland dirt trail into the Salado Creek bed trail on the eastern edge of John James Park, one enters a magical riparian woodland. The photos tell the story.

John James Park, Salado Creek Upland

Today's photos:

As with my walk this past Friday, I am going to publish this post now and add the text tomorrow. The photos tell the story better than I can write it at the moment anyway.

Update, Thursday, November 3:

The Salado Creek Greenway is in the process of being extended as part of the San Antonio Parks and Recreation's ongoing development of the greenway trail system. I wrote a little bit about the Leon Creek Greenway expansion in my Friday, October 28 post. The Salado Creek trail has been closed just north of Rittiman Rd while the bridge over the creek is being renovated. When the work on the bridge is complete, the trail will be extended into John James Park.

The Salado Creek channel is the eastern boundary of the park. There is one paved nature trail in the park with numerous natural surface side trails. On my Monday, May 30 walk I covered the paved trail and one of the dirt trails south and west from there. My walk yesterday was primarily along the dirt trail that goes south from the parking lot along the high ground at the top of the west side of the creek channel.

As soon as I was on the trail, two things really stood out. First was the abundance of wildflowers, mostly very small ones, in full bloom along the trail. The other thing that struck me was that the ground was covered with a great abundance of snail shells.

There are numerous invasive plant species in the park as there are in all of Bexar County such as Chinaberry trees, wax-leaf ligustrum (privet) and Johnsongrass to name only three of the more common species. In 2004, I was working on a photo project in Olmos Basin more or less documenting the current condition of the basin. I was criticized by at least one ecological activist for including photos of privets and Chinaberry trees. This individual missed the point of the photo essay.

While I'm not particularly proficient at plant identification, I can recognize many of the invasives, at least in their mature form. But I can't definitively distinguish Johnsongrass from other grasses as new growth. There may be a photo of young Johnsongrass in this post. I really have no idea what species it is.

The point I am getting to with this is that if I do include a photo here and there of invasive species, like it or not it is growing here. And if I do have a photo of privet or Chinaberry or Johnsongrass or whatever, my hope is it is a visually compelling and beautiful photograph worthy of inclusion in this blog.