Tampa Hiking Meetup Group

Weeden Island Preserve - August 23, 2025
https://www.weedonislandpreserve.org
https://www.weedonislandpreserve.org/visitor-map.htm
Length: About 5.3 miles, if you hike all the trails
Address: 1800 Weedon Drive NE, St. Petersburg
Meeting Place: The Cultural and Natural History Center, there is a parking lot there.
Fees: Free
Restroom: at the visitor center
Pets: No pets allowed
Plan: From the Cultural & History Center, we will start off with the Tower Boardwalk Trail and the Riviera Trail. When we finish these, we will end up back at the Cultural Center. Anyone wanting a shorter hike can stop there. Anyone wanting a longer hike can continue on with the Upland Trail Loop (out and back and loop) , then the Lookout Point Trail (out and back), and finally the Boy Scout Trail (loop). Then we will finish off by taking the Upland Trail back to the Cultural Center and our cars.

Tunneling through mangrove forests and palm hammocks to overlooks on Tampa Bay, the trails of Weedon Island Preserve offer unique perspectives for birders.

With a network of easy accessible paths and tougher natural ones and a variety of lengths of hikes, the preserve delights hikers while also interpreting one of Florida’s ancient settlements.
Weedon Island Preserve is one of Florida’s more significant archaeological sites. A dugout canoe was discovered in the mud here and carbon-dated to 900 A.D.

From other excavations of middens and mounds along Tampa Bay, archaeologists have constructed a record of a people who hunted, fished, and gathered along these shores in ancient times. One site in the preserve, Yat Kitischee, was occupied for more than a thousand years. Artifacts found from what is called the Weeden Island culture date back to 200 A.D.

This preserve is much larger than you’d think – more than 3,100 acres – since it stretches from here northward along the coastline of Tampa Bay all the way up to the St. Petersburg-Clearwater Airport.

On a trail system of less than four miles, you can hike it in many different ways. There are both spur and loop trails as a part of the trail system, so some round-trip hikes are necessary.

For a short and easy loop, tackle the very scenic Boy Scout Trail. From the small parking area at its trailhead, the trail loops around a maze of mangrove-lined waterways, mostly a tunnel in deep shade for much of the walk. Each of the wooden bridges has a name painted on it by the Boy Scouts that maintain this trail, and those names are shown on the official park map.

Peek out through the mangroves to watch ibis and herons poking around in the mud flats. There is both a 1/4-mile loop and a 3/4-mile loop possible at this end of the trail system, with a short spur trail that ends amid the ancient oaks of Weedon Hammock.

For birders, the boardwalks that lead to observation points are a must. At the Cultural and Natural History Center, look for the sign that says Paul Getting Memorial Trail to take a 0.8 mile loop through the mangroves, with a spur trail out to an observation tower looking across Riviera Bay and Old Tampa Bay to the skyline of St. Petersburg.

On the other side of the entrance road from where this loop meets the paved Upland Trail, a 3/4-mile loop called the Riviera Trail leads out to views along the bay.

In the opposite direction behind the center, the Upland Trail leads to the Bay Boardwalk, a loop with an observation deck on a pond as well as a spur trail out to an observation platform on a cove of Tampa Bay.

It’s at this stop that we saw the most birds gathered when the tide is out. Focusing on just this birding loop, returning to the center along the Upland Trail at the boardwalk’s end, will net you a 1.5-mile hike.

Connecting the Bay Boardwalk and the Boy Scout Trail is the Lookout Point Trail. This is the wildest of the trails, a mile round-trip, tunneling deep into the mangroves with a natural surface along a long, shaded corridor with occasional breaks in the vegetation overlooking mudflats.
Trail’s end is at a picnic bench and a small muddy beach along Tampa Bay.

What to Bring:

• Water
• Sunscreen
• Comfortable walking shoes
• Bug spray (just in case!)
• A hat or sunglasses
• A Camera

Looking forward to seeing you there!