Purtis Creek State Park

Review: Purtis Creek State Park is a smaller state park east of Dallas, near Athens. This is a fantastic place to get away from it all, where you can go deep into the woods and only hear the sounds of cicadas and birds. A great getaway from the city, without the long drive!

Distance: 5.8 miles of mainly natural trails

Area of Town: Eustace, about an hour east of Dallas

Facilities: Standard state park amenities including a headquarters building with restrooms, additional restrooms and showers, parking, and more. There are also picnic facilities available.

Suitable for: Walking / Jogging / Biking

Type of Trail: Natural or Gravel

Shade: Lots of shade. There are parts along the lake where you’ll be open to the sun, but the main trails are in the woods, except for the one along the dam.

Where to Park: There are two main parking areas next to the trails

Official Site: Purtis Creek State Park

Nearby Trails: John Bunker Sands Wetland Center

Purtis Creek State Park has long been on my radar to check out. While it felt like one of the smaller state parks in the area, its relative short distance from DFW made it appealing to check out. I wish I had discovered it earlier, this is a beautiful place to explore and get away from the noise of the city.

I don’t normally talk too much about how to get to the trails, since it really is going to depend on where you are coming from, and I’ll let Google Maps or Apple Maps do that work for you. I do want to point out that if your route takes you on 175 eastbound, your GPS app is going to have you turn left on FM 316 to drive about a few miles along a rural road. This is not a mistake. I kept thinking there had to be an issue with the directions, the road wasn’t wide and felt like I was in the middle of nowhere. Once you get to the end of FM 316, Purtis Creek State Park is just to the left.

Once you check in at the headquarters, you’ll want to make a left at the next intersection and drive along the dam with the lake to your right. The first parking spot you arrive at, is the trailhead for the Wolfpen trails. There is a sign by the bathrooms on the lake’s edge, which indicates the start of the Green Loop. This trail is good for hikers and bikers.

The Green Loop takes you along the lake’s boundary for a bit, with exposure to the sun, before it turns into the woods. This is an out and back trail (not sure why it’s called a loop), so you’ll be doing it once on your way out, and another time on your return. It’s a pretty trail, and is very well maintained. It was fairly quiet the day I visited, only the occasional sound of an airplane or other mechanical noise. The further away from the lake I went, the less of that I heard, replaced with the song of birds and cicadas. The green loop will dead end at a road, which you’ll cross, to enter the rest of the Wolfpen trails.

I went left along the Blue Loop when I entered the woods, but you could go also right towards the red loop. Either way, these trails feel very remote and deep in the woods. It felt like I was far from civilization back here. The trails were fairly well maintained back here, although there were sections where the grass was tall on the trail vs dirt.

I don’t know if this is common at all times of the year, or perhaps just in summer, but the bugs were AWFUL. I didn’t have any deep woods bug repellant, so had to make do with another lesser product. It didn’t work. When I stopped to take photos, the flies would bite, including through my t-shirt. There was a constant buzz as they dive-bombed me back in the Blue and Red loops of the Wolfpen trails. I strongly recommend you bring deep woods repellant, I luckily didn’t pick up any ticks, but the flies were awful.

After finishing the Blue Loop and close to the start of the Red Loop, I got tired of the dive bombing bugs and was going to head out. Before I did, I made sure to check out the “Bent by Nature” and “Burlwood Tree” points of interest (see the map). Both were cool and I recommend checking them out! They are very close to the intersection of Blue and Red.

To get out, I just reversed my path back to the park road, and then across the Green Loop back to where I parked.

At the parking lot you can also pick up the Solar Walk Trail. This is a paved trail that follows the road back to headquarters, along the dam. There isn’t a lot to see here, but there are signs positioned along the walk that show the relative distance of the sun and planets in our solar system.

Once you are finished with the Wolfpen trails, head back to the road and make a right, to head further into the park. You’ll drive back that way until you see the next parking area, for the Beaver Slide trailhead.

Beaver Slide Nature path is 1.3 out and back trail. Biking is NOT allowed on this trail.

This trail heads over a few bridges, and sticks closer to the lake along much of its journey. There is also a bird blind along this path, if you’d like to try your hand at birdwatching. The bugs were just as bad on this side as they had been along the Wolfpen trails, so I didn’t stop here to take a look.

You will eventually hit a point where you can continue forward or turn right, this is where the loop is. This is also where the primitive campgrounds are, which offer some rather nice views of the lake from within the canopy of the woods. This was my favorite part of the park, the views here were quite nice, and this trail was better maintained than the Wolfpend trails (i.e no walking through tall’ish grass).

I really enjoyed my time at Purtis Creek State Park, even with the bugs. This was a well laid out park with a variety of trails to enjoy. It’s just over an hour from Dallas, meaning you can really enjoy the quiet. Some of the other parks in the metro area may be pretty, but you can still hear cars and planes and the other sounds. of modern life. Out in Purtis Creek State Park, I truly felt like I was out in nature. I only encountered two other groups of people (one couple, on family), so it felt like I had the park to myself. It’s a great spot to enjoy some lake views, and while the trails are very easy, there’s plenty of mileage to explore.