Richards Loop 8/18/13

August 18th, 2013

Hike: Richards Loop, Sam Houston National Forest near Richards, TX

Weather: Sunny, warm, upper 80s

Hikers: Ian, Court

Left Navasota early Sunday morning and drove through several small east Texas towns (Anderson, Richards) to reach the trail head.  Court forgot the daypack so we were stuck with my Dell computer backpack, but we made do.

The trail was mostly flat, only dipping a couple of times to cross the dry creek bed.  Some parts were fairly overgrown, to Court’s chagrin.  I told her to watch for snakes, which didn’t help matters.  We saw 2 or 3 other hikers, but pretty much had the forest to ourselves.  There wasn’t much wildlife, though we did hear some woodpeckers (endangered Red-Cockaded) hammering away at the Loblolly Pines as the sun came up early in the hike.

Despite the dry creek, we did pass a couple of ponds along the way.  It was a pretty cool feeling being completely surrounded by dense forest and listening to the silence.  All in all, a nice easy hike around 6.5 miles total.  Hopefully we remember the backpack next time.