About 15 minutes drive outside of Nacogdoches is a lovely, secluded forest trail that's free and open to the public. It's part of the Angelina National Forest.
The Jack Creep loop is about a mile, flat path and is a well maintained path with benches along the way. There are a few signs along the way identifying different kinds of trees. There's also a "management loop" trail that's a couple of miles long, but when we visited, it was so overgrown that you couldn't hike much on it. However, it was really lovely to walk along the roads (FS 400 and FS 401 on the map) that are actually meant for cars. They were closed to vehicles when we were there because of recent rain, but I don't think they get any traffic most of the time, and the path is very wide and pleasant.
There's a lot of shade, and the trees are tall and simply beautiful. I was so happy in the forest that I literally hugged a tree.
There's a small parking lot - turn left when you reach the main gate; if you go straight, you'll wind up far from the trail around a bunch of research buildings. There is a water fountain at the trail head, and bathrooms, though the bathrooms were still closed in June 2021 because of the COVID pandemic.
We visited on a weekday morning and saw only two other people on the trail the entire time. Check it out! read more