The Lone Star Trail: Journal

The Lone Star Trail is about 130 miles long and the trailhead is located in the Sam Houston National Forest. Just south of Huntsville, TX. The trail is divided into 3 major sections: Lake Conroe Area, Central Area and Winters Bayou/Tarkington Creek Area. The trail is well marked with 2" x 4" markers. The Lone Star Trail Hiking Club, which maintains the trail, has even put mileage markers. There are a few missing here and there along the trail, but for the most part the trail is well marked and maintained.

The summers can be brutally hot and extremely humid even when there is no prospect for rain. The trail is more pleasant to hike in the fall or spring months. The area usually receives more rainfall in these months, which makes it easier to locate water sources. The water sources along the trail can be quite small and very congested with yellow pine pollen floating on the surface or decaying leaves pressed along the bottom. The water sources will definitely put your filter or purifier to the test and an extra filter is strongly suggested. For it doesn’t take too much pine pollen to clog the pores of your filter.

Sunday, March 14, 1999:

David and I left the trailhead at 10:30 am. I had 40 lbs. in my pack and David had 35 lbs. The weather was great, cloudy skies and high of about 65 degrees. We covered a wide variety of east Texas terrain. From swamps filled with large hard wood trees to dense pines that walled either side of the trail.

We had a traveling lunch of trail mix, David forgot to put the M&M’s in and the other suggestion is to leave out the dehydrated apples. The apples tasted good, but their texture is soft and makes you think unappetizing thoughts when you go from crunchy seeds and nuts to the soft apples. We both had Platypus drinking tubes and 2.5 liters of water. The drinking tubes allowed us to keep going and stay hydrated with out taking breaks to dig out our canteens. This allowed us to take fewer and longer breaks along the trail.

I had picked up a new Gregory Reality backpack. It also worked great and was very comfortable. Unfortunately it took me about 3 days to finally get the weight distributed comfortably between my hips and shoulders.

Within the first hour of our hike we passed a couple and their dog hiking the other way. They too looked like they just started. Their packs appeared full and clean especially the dog’s pack. The dog was carrying a vibrant red pack that looked like saddlebags across his back. Much later in the day we passed 3 men on horses enjoying the day with a ride.

The flat terrain of east Texas was nothing like our back packing trip to the Gila, NM. We stopped for the day at about 5:00pm and easily covered 11.5 miles. Our first day in the Gila we covered 2.5 miles, because we were trying to get used to the higher elevation and the elevation changes not to mention the fact that we drove 12 hours through the night to get there.

The clouds had broken up and left us by 4:00pm, which made for a cold evening. The clouds prevented the sun from heating up everything in the day and then the clear skies let what little heat was left to dissipate into the star filled night. David and I enjoyed the end of great day with a dinner of macaroni and cheese and a perfect campfire. That night the sounds of owls filled the trees. There must have been at least 4 of them nearby. We went to bed with a smile on our faces hoping the other days would be this enjoyable.

Monday, March 15, 1999:

We awoke to a cool morning and the hot apple cider and oatmeal we had for breakfast was especially good on such a morning as this. It helps to warm your insides and ward off any deep chills. We started out on the trail at 10:00.

Our plan for the trip was to use a cell phone to call our parents to come and pick us up at whatever location we were at by Saturday. Unfortunately, I didn’t check the cell phone battery before leaving and you guessed it, the battery was dead. We had 2 options: 1. Do a loop and finish by the car early enough to call Mom and Dad so they wouldn’t worry or 2. Get in touch with them by other means and have them meet us at a predetermined spot. We made good time on Sunday and we were feeling quite good today as well. We opted for option 2. I had my PDA with Pocketmail and we were supposed to pass through Stubblefield campgrounds today anyway. So we were going to try and find a pay phone and leave an email for our parents to pick us up at a location. Just to make sure that our parents got the email, they don’t check it every day, I emailed my brother and sister-in-law as well. If nothing else they would pass along the message to Mom and Dad.

On the trail to the campgrounds we passed by 2 hunters with horses and dogs. They weren’t hard to miss with their blaze orange vests and hats. They had a small caravan of 4 dogs leading the way before the hunters and hunters leading the horses. One of the horses was dragging a wild pig, about 250 to 300 lbs. The pig looked to have been killed with a large caliber pistol from close range with hollow-point ammunition. It looked to be a clean shot right through the chest cavity and through the heart.

We then passed by Lake Conroe and a stiff cool wind was blowing in off the lake. We reached Stubblefield campground about 2:00 and stopped for water and to decide where we wanted to be picked up. We ended up deciding to be picked up at FM945 & FM150. This will allow us to travel about 10 miles/day. As we left the campground it was filling up fast with families enjoying their spring break.

We ended up going for another 2.5 hours and stopped at 4:30. We went 12.5 miles. Started at 10:00 and ended at 4:30. We had quesadillas with Velveeta spicy cheese. They were good and flavorful, but David would like the dehydrated salsa anyway for substance. I realized that I forgot the butter. It wasn’t a big deal, it just would have added extra calories to our meal and would have made cooking easier. So David and I are even. He forgot the M&M’s and I forgot the butter. That night we had another perfect blazing campfire. The warmth of the fire acted like a sauna heating our stiff muscles causing them to relax. It felt so good that David and I drifted off to sleep a number of times by the fire, only to be awakened when the fire died down and the chill of the night swept in over us. I would wake up and throw a couple more logs on the fire and drift off to sleep. We finally went to bed at 11:00. The night was so quiet nothing made a sound all night. I keep expecting a storm to blow in, but we had another beautiful star filled night.

Tuesday, March 16, 1999:

We started at 10:00am again today. The powder milk and cereal in a zip lock bag made breakfast fast and easy. The milk wasn’t too bad either. The trail followed several roads. Some nice walking down dirt roads that passed pastures full of cows. With pleasant weather again today it was quite enchanting seeing all the old barns in the fields. It did warm up to about a high of 80 degrees.

The most awkward part of the day and looking back over the whole trip, was when the trail dumped us in subdivision. We had to pass by the houses on a private lake and the trail wasn’t well marked on the other side of lake. It took some time and guesswork to relocate the trail.

We crossed I45 today as well. This was pretty disenchanting. Especially since we didn’t plan the crossing too well. We had been breaking about every hour or about 3 miles. When we reached the feeder road of I45 we were about 2.5 hours into our walking period. We underestimated the distance we needed to walk along the roads. We thought we would walk down the feeder and pop back into the woods on the other side. We ended up walking about 2.5 miles along the roads and road walking is harder on the feet and legs. The hard blacktop doesn’t give any to cushion your feet and the blacktop radiates heat back up into your face.

When we did get back into the woods we then were down on ourselves because we didn’t think that we had reached our landmark for the day yet, when in reality we shot right past it. This was due to the fact that our map was from 1980. For the most part the map was still very accurate. The same loops and major water sources were still there. But the primitive campsite that we were going to stop at was no longer there.

We ended up going 13.5 miles. We are tired and are setting up camp by a really small pollen filled water source. Good thing we have a purifier. For dinner we had Lipton chicken flavored noodles & an extra 4.5 oz of noodles and a small can of chicken which was very filling. The cereal in the morning was good. We might want to add a couple of milk drinks. Maybe denser cereals like Honeynut Cheerios.

Wednesday, March 17, 1999:

Today we covered 10.5 miles. We started at 9:00 and finished at 2:00pm. We crossed FM2296 and followed Four Notch Road a couple miles before stepping back into the woods. It was another pleasant walk through the countryside. We passed by some more ranch land and some gorgeous blue bonnets. We did see a 3 foot long copper head snake bathing in the sun along side the trail. It didn't bother us and we didn't bother it. It’s red, yellow and black stripes where vibrant and colorful. We also saw 3 doe crossing one of the dirt roads we were on.

Our legs are surprisingly feeling fine. The bottoms of my feet are a little sore from the road walking. I will need to replace my boot inserts. David's feet are ok, or "peachy". Since we are ahead of schedule we stopped early at a good water source. We had Ramón Beef soup for a late lunch. We then tried to get rid of some of our stench with a sponge bath. I went ahead and shaved as well. It is too warm for a beard and mine grows quite fast. The smooth face felt good after the couple of days of stubble. We are planning on having Red Beans & Rice w/ summer sausage for dinner this evening. We are having another great fire. The secret is the pine knots. I learned this trick from a friend of my fathers. The pine knot is the part of the branch that extends into the trunk of the tree. When a tree falls down and starts to decay the pine knots are usually the last part to decay. They are so tightly wound and full of sap that when they start to burn they usually throw off a lot of heat and fire. They burn for awhile.

If we keep up our present pace we will reach our rendezvous point sometime Friday afternoon.

Thursday, March 18, 1999:

We started today at 10:00am and stopped at 2:00pm. We are so close to the end that we don’t want to get there too early. We did a light 8.5 miles and we should have another light day tomorrow as well. The temperatures have been getting warmer each day.

We went about 3 miles on dirt roads again today. Passed a couple of pick-ups going the opposite way. The water source that we stopped at isn’t as good as yesterdays, but better than average. My filter is getting really clogged with all the pine pollen. We got tired of pumping water through the filter and boiled our water for dinner. We also had the 2nd lunch of Ramón Noodles today. David couldn't stand it any more and had to shave. The itch from the stubble was getting to him so bad that he would wake up in the middle of the night and he would think that mesquitos were attacking his face. They probably were.

We have had scattered light showers on and off today with a little thunder off in the distance. Nothing heavy yet, but it will come. Before nightfall we heard a Tom (male turkey) gobble from camp. I tried to call back. He didn’t like my turkey call, and quit gobbling. Either that or I accidentally told him off.

Friday, March 19, 1999:

It had stormed over the night. The flashes of lightning lit up the tarp over us and the loud claps of thunder rumbled over head. Since we expected the storm we chose a camp location away from any lone tall pines. The only water that came in was from the rain splattering against the ground as it rolled off the tarp above us. Next time we will need to make rain lines. These are just strings that hang off of your tarp and guide the water to the ground. It’s another trick I had learned long ago, but failed to remember until it was too late to use.

We started at 10:00am again today. We found it pretty funny how we always seemed to have started at the same time each day. We didn’t set any alarm clocks or anything, it just happened.

We got to the edge of the woods about 2:00 and had to make a decision. It was only 3 miles down the road to the crossroads where Mom & Dad were going to pick us up. We had no idea what to expect at the crossroads either. If there was a phone there we could get in touch with our parents and have them pick us up tonight and we could go to a great catfish restaurant south of here, in Conroe. Or, we could turn around go back into the woods and find some water and camp for the night. We mulled it over for a little while and we decided that we were both feeling good and it was still early so we thought we would check out the cross roads.

David looked at the map and thought that the crossroads were downtown Evergreen. If that was true, it looked to be barely a town in its heyday. There was a brand new Baptist church on one side and a feed store and a closed gas station on the other. But there at the closed gas station was a pay phone that was held together by duct tape. The phone worked though and we made our call to be picked up. It was only 3:00pm and it would be about 7:00 before they would be here. So we broke out the rest of our trail mix and granola bars and finished them up and played cribbage while we waited. We talked over our trip on what we saw and did and then realized that we covered 13.5 miles today and it was only 3:00pm. We then decided that being in shape might not necessarily speed up your pace but is decreases the number of breaks you need to the distance traveled.

Now, we did go to the catfish restaurant and I know what you’re thinking. You went there after spending a week in the woods. Well…yes, but it wasn’t as bad as you would of thought. When we went back to the trailhead and picked up the car, David and I left a clean set of clothes in there. As with our other trips an extra set of clean clothes in the car is a must. It actually makes you feel civilized again.