Big Thicket National Preserve

The movies “Star Trek II” and “Star Trek III” centered around an attempt to terraform a dead planet into a living one, named the “Genesis” planet. The attempt actually failed as the planet (queuing on another 60’s TV series) “self-destructed”. Before it did, though, it created a landscape where a rainforest was butted up against a desert, and both bordered swamplands that were next to a frozen tundra. In other words, several ecosystems that should not be right next to each other were.

Big Thicket National Preserve offers a real-life Genesis planet in a small corner of Texas. Okay, it is nowhere near the extreme of the movie planet, but in this small corner of eastern Texas, one can find habitats more often found elsewhere. Beech trees from the northeast. Cactus from the southwest. Swamplands from the southeast (complete with alligators). Big Thicket has swamps, deserts, deep forests, and open plains.

Scientists believe this exists as a remnant of the last ice age. As the glaciers pushed south, plants and animals “relocated” further south to where the climate matched their habitats. Many seemed to converge on Big Thicket. When the glaciers receded, the plants and animals stayed, all coexisting with the other ecosystems around them.

Humans have lived in or traveled through the Big Thicket for thousands of years. More recently, it was a place some Texans moved initially to avoid the U.S. Civil War, and subsequently, to just be left alone. The Thicket provided all they needed to survive and yet made finding any one person difficult. Unfortunately, there is always something coming along to ruin everything!

In this case, the discovery of oil in nearby Beaumont opened a rush of people and equipment to the area. People need homes and they need wood to build. Lumber companies began striping trees from the Thicket. Of course, this allowed more sunlight to reach the ground, which resulted in an explosion of brush growing everywhere. This, in turn, disrupted the habitat of many animals who were dependent on the Thicket as it was.

Fortunately, some people saw the ecological damage being done by unbridled logging and drilling. Congress designated the Big Thicket National Preserve as America’s first preserve in 1974, protecting a portion of the Thicket for the future. Using controlled burns, the National Park Service is slowly restoring the area to its original state.

After visiting the nice Visitor’s Center and watching a short film about the Thicket (which you can watch on the NPS website), I decided I was going to take a short hike and put up with any leg pain. I drove to a nearby trailhead and headed out on a very nice, wide trail. It descended down into a swampier region, though the trail stayed on dry land or on a wooden bridge and boardwalk, so the feet stayed dry.

On crossing one bridge, I noticed a sign asking for help. Some organization was doing a long-term study of this area of the Thicket. On the railing of the bridge, they had mounted a little stand that would hold a modern cell phone. The instructions were to place a phone in the holder, take a photo, then e-mail the photo to a provided address. I figured I would contribute to man’s knowledge and sent off my photo. I did receive a quick acknowledgment and thanks, along with a link to their website with more information and a lot of gathered images. All the photos are collected and can be viewed at https://www.chronolog.io/site/BTP102. Can you find my photo (the one on this page) in their slideshow?

I was enjoying the hike and would have liked to go further, but I knew I would have to walk back out as it was not a look, and my legs were starting to hurt. I returned to my car and reluctantly left the Thicket, a fascinating place “…deep in the heart of…” …well more like “…deep on the edge…of Texas”.

Steve