Dick Nichols Park

Getting there: Head south on MoPac south of Town Lake. Take the Davis Lane exit and turn right, heading west. Turn right on Beckett Road and continue driving until you see a parking lot for a swimming center on the right. Park there and cross Beckett to get to the trailhead.

The Hike: This short hike is easy enough for hikers of all ages and also provides a nice spot for picnic lunches. Originally we thought that much of this trail would be paved, but we were pleasantly surprised to find a well maintained gravel trail for its entire length. The trailhead is located at the waypoint "Trailhead", next to a large sign along Beckett Road.

The trail starts off with a small patch of grassland. As the trail gets closer to the creek tree coverage predominates. Throughout much of the hike trees will provide plentiful shade. The topo map that we have available has not been updated by the USGS in years, so all of the new housing developments that have sprung up in the area are not on the map. Much of the trail will have the creekbed on the right and backyards of houses on the left.

The trail is very easy to follow. Although a couple of side trails exist here and there it is very easy to determine which route to take for the main trail. The lone exception may be at the waypoint "Veer Left". As the name indicates you should choose the left fork at this point. Later, if you want to explore some trails on the opposite bank of the creek you can use this point to find your way across.

At the waypoint "Creek Cross" the trail crosses a small dry creek bed. The concrete crossing would not require getting wet in any but the largest of flash floods in the area.

When you reach the waypoint marked "Turnaround" the official signs posted here and at the trailhead indicate existing trails on the opposite side of the road. We searched for these but could find no trace of them. Worse yet, we could not find any potential location for at least one of the indicated trails as some of the backyards of the homes so closely hugged the creek that cutting a trail along the creek may well be impossible. This area may well offer a much larger system of trails in the future, but for now the existing trail provides a pleasant, easy hike.

In all this 2 mile out and back hike took us one and a half hours to complete. This included some searching for the trail extensions indicated on the official trail signs that we could not locate.