Triple Creek Nature Preserve

Nice trail with sandy, pine needle and grass covered sections that went through sparse pine forests and open fields. Nice parking area with covered picnic table. Many animal tracks and scat to test your animal identification skills. Minus one star for lack of trash barrel nor restroom.

My favorite moment at Triple Creek Preserve was finding river otter footprints along the white sandy banks of one of the creeks. Clear water flowed through the shallow bed, quietly babbling like a small brook. That moment alone made the visit special for me. I spent a lot of time wandering the circuit could’ve spent a few hours if I went on the yellow trail, but I stayed on the red and the blue and kept it as a simple day. One drawback is hearing the firing guns at the nearby shooting range, the shots pierced the silence of what would have been a beautiful silent retreat and peaceful hike. When I go back, it will be on a weekday.

Real nice preserve. You can see they've done a burn a while back and starting to restore it. It looks really nice. The map board is knocked down but you can still see the map and snap a picture. The trails are very well marked and wide so there's no worrying about going off trail. They have places where you can scan the code and hear the story of the preserve. There are two trails, a red and a yellow. The red is mostly in shaded woods and some fields. The yellow trail is really all open, sandy, scrub. The sand is thick and somewhat rough to walk through especially if it's already hot. More suitable for a winter walk. But the red trail is a little over 2 miles and it's well shaded. There are some other side trails throughout you can see where they go on all trails but the preserve doesn't have them marked on their map. Theres plenty of gopher tortoises walking around and lots of cool birds, and you can see that hogs have their way with the place. There are no bathrooms but there are a few picnic tables at the entrance of the preserve. It's a great place for a day walk. Hillsborough County really seems to have a lot of great and well cared for parks.

I went to Triple Creek nature preserve today with my daughter. We only did the red loop but it was fun. The trail is well marked, some parts are shady & some parts are sunny. There is a tiny creek you have to cross & one small tree to step over but the rest is fairly flat, grassy, or sandy. Unfortunately I didn't see deer or other animals except dragonflies, butterflies & this centipede I'm posting here.

What an awesome first time! We arrived early at 7:30 AM and were greeted by a deer just 10 minutes into our hike on the red trail. We had actually spotted another one on the road in, too! The trail was a bit challenging with some creek crossings that were pretty flooded due to recent rain. We had to get a little creative and go around the first crossing, eventually finding a board over the water on the right side. My shoes definitely got wet, but it was worth it! We completed the red trail in under an hour and had a fantastic time despite the damp feet. We even saw a caterpillar along the way!