Did you know that north of Houston there is a 96 mile hiking trail (with an additional 32 miles of loop and crossover trails) in the Sam Houston National Forest, the longest continuous trail in Texas in fact? It’s the Lone Star Hiking Trail. I find that very few people know about it. Truth be told, I only found out about it about a few years ago. The trail starts west of I-45 just south of Richards, Texas and ends east of I-45 northwest of Cleveland, Texas.
The trail is broken down into sections. Maps for each section can be found on the Lone Star Hiking Trail Club’s website.
- Section #1 – Little Lake Creek Wilderness
- Section #2 – Kelly
- Section #3 – Stubblefield
- Section #4 – Huntsville
- Section #5 – Phelps
- Section #6 – Four Notch
- Section #7 – Big Woods
- Section #8 – Magnolia
- Section #9 – Big Creek
- Section #10 – Tarkington
- Section #11 – Winters Bayou
Over the past few years I have hiked sections here and there, either by myself or with a Meetup group I join from time to time. This past spring (3/17) I set out to hike the entire trail, including the loop and crossover trails, over the course of the spring. Be nice if I could just take a week or so and hike it end-to-end in one long hike, but that just isn’t something I can take a week and do. So I would out and hike 3 – 7 miles of the trail at a time. Which means 6 – 14 mile hikes because I have to hike back to my parking spot each time. So when complete, I should have over 200 miles of trails covered.
So it’s October, how was the hike of the entire trail you ask? Well… I got sidetracked at the end of April and decided to buy a house. So all of May and June were eaten up by the house buying and moving processes. Then there were other things to be done, vacations to be taken, a daughter to move to school, blah, blah, blah. It wasn’t until September that I started hiking the trail again. I’m currently finishing up Section #7 (Big Woods), and have logged 122 miles so far. One thing I found once I got to the west side of I-45, there are a lot of parts of the “trail” that are just walking along road to get to the next part of the trail in the forest. After walking a few miles on these, I decided I wasn’t going to do those “trails” along the road anymore. It just wasn’t enjoyable, and in some spots, it was quite dangerous. Because of this my mileage total is not going to be as high as I expected when I set out on this endeavor. And I guess I won’t be able to claim that I completed the entire trail end-to-end, I’m OK with that.
In the spring when I started in Section #1 (Little Lake Creek Wilderness), things were starting to green up and the scenery was quite pretty in areas, especially around Lake Conroe. Since starting back up in September, I have been dealing with a lot of downed trees and washed out trails due to Hurricane Harvey and the scenery hasn’t been as nice. From past hikes in this area, I knew it wasn’t going to be the most beautiful of hikes, but with the storm damage and a lot of areas where the trail is not visible due to overgrowth, it hasn’t been nearly as enjoyable as the hikes in the spring. That said, I still enjoy it, being out in the woods, away from everything, a time to re-center.
While out on the trail I haven’t run across a lot of wildlife, mostly snakes. So far this year I haven’t seen too many snakes while out. I have run across one Copperhead, a few Coral Snakes, a couple Rat Snakes, a pretty Bluestripe Ribbon Snake, and a couple Garter Snakes. While out in years past I have seen a lot more rattlesnakes, a couple Water Moccasins (Cotton Mouth), and Hognoses. Can’t say I’m disappointed that I’m see less rattlesnakes and no Water Moccasins. This year for the first time I did run across a Snapping Turtle and a few Box Turtles. And though I always see the rutting of wild hogs, I have never seen any (knock on wood), I DO NOT want to have a run in with those. As far as birds go, have seen Cardinals, Blue Jays, Woodpeckers, and a few other various types. As always, I’ll be on the lookout for more.
One cool area I came across in the Four Notch section was this cool, creepy little grove. Had a bunch of thorny bush/trees with what looked like little lemons. After some research I’ve found these are called Trifoliate Oranges. Also found these crazy looking green bumpy grapefruit sized things that a friend called Horse Apples. I guess they are technically Osage Oranges. I cut one of each open to see what they looked like. As bad as I wanted to, I didn’t taste them. You can see them in the pictures below.
I hope I have piqued your curiosity and you venture out to hike at least a part of this trail if you are in the area. If you have any questions I might be able to answer, send me a message. More to come…
MORE PICTURES
HIKESI will be updating this with new hikes as I progress through the trail. You can click on the “LHST Hike #” to see an image of each hike with my hike highlighted.
- 3/19/17 – LHST Hike #1
- Section #1
- Starting/Ending Point – Trailhead #1
- Distance – 12 miles
- Cumulative Miles: 12
- 3/20/17 – LHST Hike #2
- Section #1
- Starting/Ending Point – Trailhead #3
- Distance – 8.4 miles
- Cumulative Miles: 20.4
- 3/28/17 – LHST Hike #3
- Section #2
- Starting/Ending Point – Trailhead #3
- Distance – 7.5 miles
- Cumulative Miles: 27.9
- 4/5/17 – LHST Hike #4
- Section #2
- Starting/Ending Point – Trailhead #6
- Distance – 6.9 miles
- Cumulative Miles: 34.8
- 4/11/17 – LHST Hike #5
- Section #3
- Starting/Ending Point – Trailhead #6
- Distance – 8.8 miles
- Cumulative Miles: 43.6
- 4/12/17 – LHST Hike #6
- Section #3
- Starting/Ending Point – Near Stubblefield Campground
- Distance – 5.6 miles
- Cumulative Miles: 49.2
- 4/27/17 – LHST Hike #7
- Section #3
- Starting/Ending Point – 1374 Shoulder
- Distance – 6.6 miles
- Cumulative Miles: 55.8
- 5/1/17 – LHST Hike #8
- Section #4
- Starting/Ending Point – Cotton Creek Cemetery Rd.
- Distance – 7.2 miles
- Cumulative Miles: 63
- 5/1/17 – LHST Hike #9
- Section #4
- Starting/Ending Point – Trailhead #7
- Distance – 5.6 miles
- Cumulative Miles: 68.6
- 9/9/17 – LHST Hike #10
- Section #1
- Starting/Ending Point – Trailhead #4
- Distance – 13.3 miles
- Cumulative Miles: 81.9
- 9/16/17 – LHST Hike #11
- Section #2
- Starting/Ending Point – Trailhead #4
- Distance – 11.8 miles
- Cumulative Miles: 93.7
- 9/23/17 – LHST Hike #12
- Section #5
- Starting/Ending Point – Shoulder of Evelyn Lane
- Distance – 10 miles
- Cumulative Miles: 103.7
- 9/30/17 – LHST Hike #13
- Section #6
- Starting/Ending Point – Trailhead #8
- Distance – 10 miles
- Cumulative Miles: 113.7
- 10/7/17 – LHST Hike #14
- Section #7
- Starting/Ending Point – Trailhead #9
- Distance – 8.8 miles
- Cumulative Miles: 122.5
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