Last week I hiked the Lone Star Hiking Trail, the longest trail in Texas, from one end to the other (called “thru-hiking”). The trail is just over 96 miles long, and it took me 5 days.
This was my first real backpacking trip (I don’t count my four Nepal treks, as they were relatively luxurious). It was also the first big hike I’ve done that didn’t involve mountains of any kind. I had a great time, if you define great as “sometimes kind of terrible in the moment but fun in retrospect,” as I have learned to do. Both ends of this trail are about an hour and a half from Houston, the fourth-largest city in the United States, but I hiked for four days without seeing another hiker.
Day 1 (~19 miles)
Heading out!
This sums up all of the first day and much of the entire trail. The trail was very wet and blown-down trees had to be climbed over, crawled under, or bushwhacked around.
A short boardwalk section over some muddy trail.
More blowdowns on the trail.
The trail was very, very wet in places.
Lake Conroe
My campsite at Stubblefield Lake Recreation Area. You can see the brown lake in the background.
Day 2 (~19 miles)
Stubblefield Lake on the morning of day 2.
Drying socks on the outside of my pack.
An arm of Stubblefield Lake
Road walking
The solution I came up with to deal with getting tons and tons of spiderwebs right in my face
Overgrown trail
A pond
Extreme elevation.
Passing by a nice private lake and subdivision. I saw a couple of turtles and a couple of great blue herons here.
Road walking to cross under I-45.
Look at that beautiful swamp water!
My soggy camp for night 2
Trying to dry off and air out my zombie feet
Day 3 (~20 miles)
Lovely mailbox
A nice little stream where I sat to filter water and eat lunch
Beautiful forest
Hey look, trees!
Night 3’s soggy camp
Day 4 (~17 miles)
Log sidewalk
Filtering water at a small stream after an extended dry section
Frog!
Not happy about having to ford the East Fork of the San Jacinto River.
It’s like my grandpappy used to say. When life puts a river in your path, take your pants off and walk on through. The water was chest-deep.
Double Lake
My campsite at Double Lake Recreation Area
Day 5 (~21 miles)
Pleasant forest hiking
Yup, more pleasant forest hiking.
Bridge over not-so-troubled water
Hey, a turtle in the middle of the trail!
Swamp
Timber!
The end. Nearly 100 miles later and feeling fine (apart from sore feet and more mosquito bites than I started out with).
—–
I found out after the hike that a storm had come through a day or two before my hike and blown down over a hundred trees in the first section alone. The Forest Service even closed the beginning section of the trail while they assessed the damage, but that was a couple of days after I went through.
Expect a short (maybe ~15,000–20,000-word) ebook about the hike sometime in the next few months.