Edward Bok, who built the Bok Tower and created a garden spot atop Iron Mountain in Lake Wales, had a soft spot for this wild place, which he called “The Jungle.”
While the wild forests around it were turned to orange groves, this basin with its mix of creek floodplain, wet prairies, and bayhead swamps between the sand ridges remained.
Thanks to the vision of Ken Morrison, the second director of Bok Tower Gardens, and his son Steve, who carried on restoration for more than three decades, this preserve is unique and wild.
Tiger CreekThis carefully preserved piece of the Lake Wales Ridge has one of the highest concentrations of rare plant species in the United States.
It’s an ark of ancient Florida, outstanding example of the ancient islands that once stood above the waves as Florida submerged in Miocene times.
Prairie on the ancient scrubWhen we revisited Tiger Creek Preserve for the newest edition of 50 Hikes in Central Florida, it was a delight to find footpaths instead of blazed forest roads, and the new Wakeford trailhead.
This northerly trailhead provides direct access to the showy Creek Bluffs Trail and the Highlands Loop. It also makes it possible to do the following route using two vehicles, one at each trailhead.
Lower junction of the Highlands LoopThe extensive network of trails, with its side loops and round-trips, makes it possible to tailor a hike to the length you’d like.
Most visitors start at the Pfundstein Trailhead, the older and more well-established entrance to the trail network, and hike north along the linear Pfundstein Trailhead to some turnaround point.
South end of the Pfundstein TrailPatrick Creek, Heron Pond, or the Highlands Loop are popular destinations for round-trips, enabling hikes from 2 miles to 11.8 miles round-trip, with several optional loops along the route.
Our 6.3 mile route explained below traverses the preserve at a diagonal from northeast to southwest.
Heron PondResources
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Overview
Location: Babson Park
Length: 6.3 miles linear
Trailheads: 27.8315, -81.4566 (Wakeford), 27.8080, -81.4924 (Pfundstein)
Address: 674 Pfundstein Rd, Babson Park
Fees: None
Restroom: None
Land manager: The Nature Conservancy
Phone: 863-635-7506
No pets or bicycles permitted. Day use only.
Directions
For the Wakeford Rd trailhead, drive east from Lake Wales along SR 60 for 9 miles to Lake Walk-in-the-Water Rd. Continue south on that road for 3.6 miles to Wakeford Rd. Turn right and follow the road to where it ends. The trailhead is on the left.
For the Pfundstein Rd trailhead, drive south from Babson Park on Scenic 17 for two miles. Turn left on North Lake Moody Rd. Make a left on Murray Rd. The road goes downhill through citrus groves, crossing a railroad track. Make a left on Pfundstein Rd. Pass the sign for the Cooley Trail before you reach the entrance for the Pfundstein Road trailhead on the left.
Hike
Sign in at the Wakeford Road trailhead kiosk. Step through the gap in the fence and make a left to follow the beaten track of the Wakeford Trail.
It starts out as a forest road through scrubby flatwoods. The landscape is quite open despite the dense understory.
Wakeford Road trailhead at Tiger Creek PreserveMake a sharp right at a well-signed intersection in deep soft sand, continuing on the next forest road.
Tall grasses peep through the saw palmetto. Pass two junctions where it’s not obvious which way you should go. Stay left at each one.
Double blazes on a pineAfter 0.4 mile at a “Trail” sign on a stump, follow the blazes and the direction of the arrow down a footpath to the right.
The trail quickly loses elevation to reach a crossing of Tiger Creek at the bottom of a hill.
Crossing the bridge over Tiger CreekCross this bridge to the boardwalk and enjoy the view. It’s a bit of a scramble up the bluff along a switchback that gets you to the top at a T with a forest road. Turn right.
The white-blazed Wakeford Trail ends at the pink-blazed Creek Bluffs Loop with a prominent sign on a snag at 0.6 mile. For a short hike, it’s a beauty. Save it for another visit.
Our route diverges from the Creek Bluffs LoopStay left at the fork to follow the sand road uphill to a panorama of prairie below. Watch for where the footpath veers right off the forest road and stick with the pink blazes.
At 0.9 mile, past a bench overlooking a scenic swale, a double white blaze on a snag with a sign “To Highlands Loop” pointed away from the Creek Bluffs Loop.
Prairie panorama before the connector trailFollow the very short Highlands Loop connector to the left. It leads to one of the oldest hiking loops in the preserve, originally built by the Florida Trail Association.
A sign at the end of the connector faces the Highlands Loop, which is blazed orange. Turn left to walk beneath the longleaf pines.
Connector to the Highlands LoopThe trail slips between clumps of saw palmetto on the bright white sands of the Lake Wales Ridge.
At 1.4 miles, turn right and follow the blazes briefly down an old forest road before the trail makes a left at the “Tricia’s Peak” sign, entering an oak hammock and rising up the next ridge.
Watch for turns on and off forest roadsReach Tricia’s Peak after 1.7 miles. It is atop one of the highest scrub ridges in the preserve, with a particularly pleasing panorama of the prairies and pines below.
A bench honors Tricia Martin, one of the preserve’s long-time managers. Step up for an outstanding view. A map is posted behind the bench. From here, the trail drops into sandhills.
View from Tricia’s PeakThe trail enters the intimate spaces of oak hammocks where gnarled sand live oaks knit a canopy overhead.
Cross a two-track forest road, followed by another with deeper soft sand in a quarter mile. In between, the oak hammocks dominate.
Large wet prairie in the middle of the lower portion of the Highlands LoopThe trail provides an expansive view into a large prairie to the right.
A plank bridge leads over a trickle of a waterway coming out of the prairie after the trail follows it a while.
Plank bridgeAfter a scramble out of the drainage, the trail comes to its next major intersection, the junction of the Highlands Loop and the Pfundstein Trail at 2.8 miles.
If you are doing a loop out and back from the Wakeford trailhead, you’d stay on the Highlands Loop. For this linear hike, turn left to start the Pfundstein Trail, which is blazed white.
Map at the white-blazed Pfundstein TrailSandhills dominate this part of the preserve, with healthy stands of sand live oak. Crossing a forest road before the trail burrows down a corridor edged with saw palmetto, make a left.
Join a forest road to traverse the drainage of a bayhead swamp. Rocks laid on the road help you keep your shoes mostly dry.
Bayhead drainageLeaving the forest road to the right at a marked turn with a map, you immediately come to a junction with the Heron Pond Loop at 3.3 miles.
This is an optional loop to take along this linear hike but given its location, it’s worth the walk. Turn left.
Start of the Heron Pond LoopA small memorial presents the trail in memory of Ken Morrison. It was his life’s work to preserve this landscape, with the help of The Nature Conservancy.
He worked not just in boardrooms and at fundraising events, but personally built and maintained trails and restored rare species along the Lake Wales Ridge.
Oak hammock past the memorialKeep left to walk the loop counterclockwise. As the Heron Pond Trail is blazed red, it’s sometimes tough to see the blazes amid the red blanket lichen on the sand live oak trunks.
The trail climbs through the sandhills to reach a bench overlooking its namesake pond, a marshy depression in the deeply folded valley below.
Bench with view of Heron PondAfter working its way down from the crest, the trail comes to a T with a forest road at 3.8 miles. Turn right to take it between the wetlands.
When you reach the opposite shore, take the path to the left to the bird blind, a resting spot with a beautiful view across the open water of the pond.
Heron Pond bird blindReturn along the shoreline, turn left, and look for the right turn to keep looping around the pond.
Walking through more sandhills and patches of scrub on the slopes well above the pond, you cross a sand road that angles sharply down the hill to the prairie.
View from the hill down to Heron PondWe were told that each of the hills on this loop supposedly have names, and this one is Achy Breaky Hill. The trail no longer goes down the forest road, but provides a nice view downslope.
After a more gradual descent through the forest to the scrubby flatwoods, cross that same forest road.
Hiking into scrubby flatwoodsWalking beneath the oaks and pines, reach the end of the Heron Pond Loop. Turn left at the junction with the white-blazed Pfundstein Trail.
The trail tunnels through more picturesque oak hammocks before crossing a deep soft sand road.
Turn left on the Pfundstein Trail at this junctionWalking beneath the pines, note a bayhead swamp off to the left, in a swale at the bottom of the hill. Pass a bench at 4.7 miles.
Reaching a soft sand road, the trail turns left at a map to join it downhill to cross the bayhead. It can get a little squishy here sometimes.
Crossing the bayhead swamp at Tiger Creek PreserveAfter you leave the road and rejoin the trail, a bench looks out towards the Patrick Creek floodplain, where a pair of eagles are nesting in a tall pine.
The number of dead trees are surprising. Extensive flooding along Patrick Creek soaked the roots of those trees for so long after Hurricane Irma that most of them died.
Major trail junctionReaching the big sign at the junction of the Patrick Creek Trail at 5.2 miles, make a right to go down to the creek for a look.
Walk through open pine flatwoods with views off to the right into the creek basin and listen for the fuss of the eagles as they work on their nest.
Descent to Patrick CreekA bench sits off to the left as you reach Patrick Creek. The water levels may be high, flooding a portion of the bridge.
While the Great Sand Pine Loop may be inaccessible, the creek is still a beauty spot worth seeing.
Patrick Creek as seen from the bridgeAt 5.6 miles, return to the trail junction and make a right to head towards the Pfundstein trailhead.
The trail climbs up and over numerous small ridges, each with views down to the line of dead trees that show you the location of the Patrick Creek floodplain.
Dead trees in distance along floodplainNotice the round grassy swales, almost as if they’d been planted under the pines? These unique biomes are cutthroat grass seeps.
Found nowhere else in the world but Florida, cutthroat grass grows in spots where moisture seeping from the sand feeds its minimal water requirements.
This endangered grass is protected along the Lake Wales Ridge. Beyond a showy seep, you reach a bench in a clearing in the sandhills.
Cutthroat grass seep along the Pfundstein TrailThe last stretch of the trail is very scrubby as you draw close to the end of the hike, with diminutive oaks pressing close on both sides.
Dropping down a slope, you can see the Pfundstein trailhead up ahead and reach it after 6.3 miles.
Pfundstein Road trailhead kioskTrail Map
Explore More!
Slideshow
See our photos of Tiger Creek Preserve
Nearby Adventures
Ridge Audubon Center Atop the Lake Wales Ridge, the nature trails at the Ridge Audubon Center in Babson Park do a fabulous job of interpreting the unique flora and fauna of this island of biodiversity.
SUMICA With up to 6.2 miles of trails - many of them a bit wet - SUMICA is one of the natural lands in Polk County where birding is especially superb.
Crooked Lake Prairie At Crooked Lake Prairie, the dunes of the Lake Wales Ridge meet showy prairie grasslands along the eastern shore of Crooked Lake. 
Hickory Lake Scrub Edging the eastern shore of Hickory Lake south of Frostproof, Hickory Lake Scrub is a showcase of unique plants thriving in the ancient sands of the Lake Wales Ridge.
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