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20210424 – Chaparral Prairie State Nature Preserve

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Date: 04/24/2021 – Distance: 2.0 mi – Elapsed Time: 1.5 hr – Ascent: 223 ft – Descent: 161 ft – Difficulty: Easy

This place will be amazing in the summer, and I will be back then to witness the spectacular wildflowers and butterflies then. The Prairie Dock, Blazing Star, and Tall Coriopsis are amazing here. The area has several such prairies and is a remnant of ancient prairies extending north to here where they were untouched by glacier activity known as the prairie peninsula. Some of the plants can have roots extending 30 feet deep. Controlled burning helps keep the prairie pristine and free of invasives and succession by the forest.

Sign marking the entrance off of Chapparal Road.
Parking lot. They have a ODNR office here.
Easter Red Cedar is dominate here.
Trailhead.
Map of trails.
Some info about the preserve.
Blazing Star.
Some rules. No pets or harvesting.
Entering the prairie.
You can go any direction, as they all connect.
Rattlesnake Master I believe. It gets a really cool looking corona virus looking flower.
These signs are great and are sprinkled throughout the preserve.
They just did a burn here.
Prairie Dock I believe.
It’s a diverse prairie full of tall flowering plants.
The trail skirts the edge of the woods.
Looking out to the prairie.
Trout Lily seed head.
Pussytoes.
Eastern Red Cedar is everywhere here.
Eastern Red Cedar.
Yellow Star Grass?
More Rattlesnake Master.
Info about the Rattlesnake Master.
Cool Bracket Fungus.
I took this branch to the other trails.
Trail crosses a road.
Deer.
Into another prairie.
I went leftt to the Cedar Barren Loop Trail.
Watch out for this branch. You want to go straight.
There is a creek here.
Eastern Red Cedar, notice how it differs from the White Cedar which has flatter needles.
Wild Blue Phlox.
Deer skeleton.
Hoof.
Skull.
This bridge looked sketchy.
Cool coloring in the shale.
The trail goes right, but a short spur goes to another prairie.
Sometimes these buttercups are hard to tell apart.
The side prairie.
Reindeer Lichen is cool.
It’s actually two organisms working together.
Back on the Cedar Barren Loop Trail.
There are a lot of Cedars here.
They get thick.
Eastern Red Cedar.
I took the Bald Knob Trail.
I stopped at this spot for a rest.
I didn’t do this trail entirely, but it goes out into the prairie and around the other side of the hill.
Back on the Hawk Hill Loop Trail.
You can see how the burn must be carefully controlled as the Cedars are very flammable.
More about the flowers found here.
The burn is evident here.
And here, but it only burns the top.
One last Cedar grove.
Ground Cedar isn’t actually a pine but a moss.
Those brown spikes are the flowers and extremely flammable.
This looks like a glacial erratic but it’s out of place here.
Info about the ancient prairies here.
I will be back first of August.
Arriving back to the trailhead.
One last look across the prairie.
Thank you to the vision of more knowledgeable people who know the value of preserving such a place.

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One response to “20210424 – Chaparral Prairie State Nature Preserve”

  1. 20210724 – Chaparral Prairie State Nature Preserve – Hiking with Doc

    […] visited this place in the spring and knew then I had to come back later to see it again. Chaparral Prairie State Nature Preserve, in […]

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