Talks & Walks Calendar

The Trinity River: The Watery Tie that Binds North Texas
talk and river walk
Saturday November 2 at 1 to 2:30 pm

John Bunker Sands Wetland Center
655 Martin Ln, Combine, TX 75159
https://wetlandcenter.com/

Talk followed (hopefully) by special walk for a rare opportunity to see the East Fork, by permission of the North Texas Municipal Water District. OR talk followed by a saunter on the boardwalks.

<> The Trinity River: The Watery Tie that Binds North Texas <>

There is only one river in North Texas: the Trinity. Once rejected and forgotten, paid attention to only when it floods, the Trinity is transforming from a place of refuse to refuge. First, a short romp through our river follies, like when the West Fork was called River of Death and the insane attempts to turn the Trinity into a barge canal to the Gulf. Then we’ll take a tour of the Trinity’s four forks—Clear, East, Elm, and West—exploring each one’s unique characteristics, plus the nature preserves and attractions they are home to. This riverine network is home to the Trinity River Paddling Trail, a National Park Service recreation trail with over 120 miles of floating fun.

Photo of the Trinity River in the Great Trinity Forest by Daniel Koglin.

Friends of Piedmont Ridge Workdays!

Mark your calendars please:
Oct 6 Sun.
Nov 3 Sun.
Both from 1:30 to 4 pm

Meet in the parking lot at 2725 N Jim Miller Rd, Dallas TX 75217, a few blocks south of Scyene by the baseball field.

Please register so we can notify you of last-minute changes: https://volunteersignup.org/99ETT

For Oct 6 Sun, we’ll be getting the trail ready for the onslaught of fall foliage hikers. We’ve finalized the beautification agreement with Dallas Parks & Recreation (yay Kristi!), so we’re cleared to cut. So bring loppers and we’ll widen the Lacywood and Scyene Overlook Trail, and begin the privet clearing process around trees we’ve identified as exceptional. We’ll also test out the temporary wayfinding signs and make sure they make sense to everyone. Bring trash sacks for litter picking.

Nov 3 Sun will be more of the same, with the added bonus of enjoying fall foliage as we do.

Trail maintenance support provided by Trinity Coalition: https://trinitycoalition.org/

Message us your email address to be added to the Friends of Piedmont Ridge email list.

Friends of Piedmont Ridge (White Rock Bluffs) Facebook page coming soon!

Monday, November 4, 2024 — 10 am to noon

AARP 3880 Casa Linda Dallas

Casa View Assembly of God

9949 Ferguson Road, Dallas, TX 75228

Wild DFW: The Nature We Call Home

Blending poetic passages from the book Wild DFW: Explore the Amazing Nature Around Dallas-Fort Worth with her own profound experiences, and illustrated with the book’s astounding photographs, Amy Martin will inspire about the nature we call home and how it helped her heal from a near-fatal spinal injury. The passion of the prairie, the nurturing bottomland forest, the elusive Trinity River, the soaring escarpments, and the survivor Eastern Cross Timbers, Amy will bring insight into how to appreciate and explore our North Texas nature.

Piedmont Ridge: Hike North Texas with Dallas Sierra Club & Wild DFW

Nov 9 Sat – 9:30 am to 2 pm

2725 N Jim Miller Rd Dallas TX 75217 (softball field parking lot) Google maps

Enjoy long-distance hikes through fascinating large preserves and parks — without leaving DFW. Dallas Sierra Club joins with Amy Martin, author of Wild DFW: Explore the Amazing Nature Around Dallas-Fort Worth, to offer quarterly hikes on trails as wild as North Texas has to offer. Explore these places with naturalists and others that know them the best. 

First up: Piedmont Ridge, part of the Dallas parks system and the northernmost section of the Great Trinity Forest. Best place to experience fall foliage in Dallas. We’ll hike every trail there. Two sections of soaring limestone escarpment with unique upland woods (Scyene/Lacywood Overlook Trails and Piedmont Ridge Trail), connected by a long stretch of lush bottomland forest (JJ Beeman Trail). About 5 miles.

Points-of-interest naturalist mini-breaks: 4 overlooks that afford views of the Great Trinity Forest (in autumn colors!), downtown and across the county to Cedar Hill… historic Comanche eastern red cedar lodgepole woods… historic settlers’ black walnut grove… ridgetop Blackland Prairie.

We hope these hikes will help Dallas and surroundings develop a mindset of embracing its nature with a deep sense of pride. From that will arise more trails and greater land preservation. You don’t have to travel far for great nature.

Donations for hike leader thank-you gifts and park/preserve donations appreciated: TBA. 

Wild DFWs available for purchase. Book info.

Hike North Texas Specifics

• Typical hike length: 4 to 7 miles. Options for additional miles provided. 
• Typical hike time: 4 to 5 hours.

This will be unfettered nature, so keep in mind: 

• Terrain will frequently be rugged with some elevation changes. 
• Trails narrow will always be dirt and usually narrow, but with some easy sections.  
• While we’ll go at a good pace, there will be stops for exceptional naturalist points of interest. 

Come prepared: 

• Wear closed-toed shoes and long pants. 
• Pack multiple water bottles (24 oz. recommended.
• Bring a bag lunch, snack bars and such for our mid-way break. 

Holland Trail hike with Outdoor Explorer Texas

Nov 16 Sat – 10 am to 12:30 pm

park along the road behind the golf course just west of 5940 Elam Rd, Dallas, TX 75217

Ready to get rugged? Holland Trail is one of the Go Wild hikes in Wild DFW. The access from Elam Rd to the Trinity River can be quite overgrown, but we’ll bring loppers. Then there’s a little bushwhacking to find a small riverside trail that leads to the end of the Holland Trail. This equestrian trail emanates from the Texas Horse Ranch and ends at a lovely large forest pond. From there it’s usually wide and mowed. But if it’s not too wet we’ll take a narrow footpath to the Trinity-White Rock Creek confluence—the heart of the Great Trinity Forest. Then we’ll continue on the spur, reconnect with the Holland Trail and take it to Bryan’s Slough.

Wear long pants, long-sleeved shirt or overshirt, and very sturdy hiking boots. A change of shoes and a towel for the rid home is advised. Use lots of bug repellent. Bring a compass and make sure your phone is fully charged with a back-up battery. Best to have a GPS system like Gaia on your phone or at the very least Google Maps.

UNT Society for Ecological Restoration
Wild Lands of Denton County

Nov 21 Thur – 5 to 6 pm

UNT Physics Building Room 104
210 Ave A, Denton TX
https://maps.app.goo.gl/xtoXMJ5TcgFU31XS8?g_st=com.google.maps.preview.copy

Denton County is home to three of the five largest—ranging from 2600 to 3700 acres— nature parks and preserves in North Texas: Clear Creek Natural Heritage Center (Denton), Ray Roberts Lake State Park (Pilot Point), and Lewisville Lake Environmental Learning Area, called LLELA. That’s bragging rights!

Get to know them all—rich bottomland woods, wide open prairies, upland forests, wetlands, river and creek riparian corridors, and more—in this talk.

Amy Martin, author of Wild DFW: Explore the Amazing Nature Around Dallas-Fort Worth, will share excerpts and photos from those chapters in the book, woven with the dramatic story of recovering from a traumatically broken neck by walking dirt trails at these and other locations.

Photo of Bittern Marsh at LLELA by Daniel Koglin.