Trailway From Birch Creek Unit

I parked at the Ranger Station HQ and took the Trailway out towards Yegua Creek.  I had hiked the other half (Nails Creek Trailway) about a week ago and I wanted to complete the rest of the hike.

Like the Nails Creek Trailway, the trail is a wide service road more than a nature trail.  There are rest stops every few miles with a map showing your current location.  There's not a lot to see.  At the beginning of the hike, you are within sight of Lake Somerville and you can take a loop to approach even closer.  As I did, I ran into a large family of javelinas.  There must have been close to 10 of them.

Along the way, you will see some oil pumps and storage tanks, but it's really just a lot of shrubs and trees most of the way.  Occassionally, you will see some white tailed deer and some nice redbirds or large cranes.

Aside from a few loops, there is really only one long trail to Yegua Creek.  When I got there, I saw several people fishing.  The fish must have been biting pretty good because I saw a few guys carrying about 5 fish each that were fairly large.

The one complaint I have about this State Park Trailway is that the trail is not well marked in the Yegua Creek / Newman's Bottom area.  It is fairly well marked by posts the rest of the trail, but in this area you can easily miss a turn in the trail and go off on a service road that looks just like the trail you've been walking on.  This happened to me last week, adding about 2 miles to my hike, and it happened to me again today.  The trail turns and runs along Yegua Creek (and the trailway map shows this), but the physical markers aren't very visible and easy to miss.  This could easily be resolved by posting one or two signs (with words) in the Yegua Creek area to help prevent people from getting off course.

On my way back, I ran into a 4 foot snake on the trail.  It was directly in my path (laying across the trail), but I carefully managed to go around him.

At dusk, a lot of deer will come out to graze in the grassy areas near the Park HQ.  They are very friendly and generally not scared of people at all.