Lonesome Dove Trail at Cooper Lake State Park

We went to Cooper Lake State Park in east Texas camping with a group of friends on Spring Equinox. 

On the Spring Equinox Saturday, we arrived the first at the park. Since the rest of the group planned to go fishing we went hiking on Lonesome dove trail at the west side of the park by ourselves. 

Lonesome trail is the longest loop trail in the park. But one has to use a connecting trail from the end of the road parking lot to get there. So the full round trip is about 6 miles, instead of 4.6 miles of the loop itself.

The connecting trail to the Lonesome dove trail is not well marked, we got to check the map on the phone frequently to make sure we walked toward the loop trail. The lonesome dove trail itself is well marked.

our trail

 The trail is moderately challenging according to the park website, mostly because it transverses some deep gullies. It is in densely wooded area, trees all around the trail most of the time. However most trees were still budding, so the Sun shone through.

Budding leaves on the still barren trees , white Mexican plums, pink eastern redbuds and green fully grown leaves scattered here and there. Birds were chirping, but they camouflaged so well we could rarely see them. I saw a couple in transient as we were close to the source of the sounds. I did catch a beautiful woodpecker and another bird on the same tree on my camera. There were also butterflies, grasshoppers and insects - a blue bug caught our eyes! 

Signs of the spring were everywhere.

the flat portion of the lonesome dove trail

One  gully

budding leaves of an unknown tree

Along the way, we heard some sounds from under the thick fallen leaves by the trail. Initially we thought the noise might come from snakes. At one time, I paused to look at the direction of the sound, and eventually I saw a shell emerged from the thick leaves and then a head with ears - it was a armadillo! I could not focus my camera on it since it was behind low bushes.

Eastern Redbuds

Mexican plums

A woodpecker

A bright blue bug

A very small portion of the trail is along the lake shore. The lake water looked muddy, not sure if it was due to heavy rains earlier in the week at the shallow lake. It is interesting to note that even though the park is named Cooper lake state park, the lake itself is named Jim Chapman Lake

We only encountered one couple on lonesome dove trail the whole time. The rest of time we had the trail all to ourselves, immersed in nature in solitude.

It was very pleasant to hike on this trail. 

Jim Chapman Lake - where Cooper Lake park is

A large Mexican plum tree

A large Eastern Redbud away from the woods

Note: We felt the Lonesome Dove trail is better than the Coyote Run trail on the east side of the park, which we hiked the next day with our friends, because Lonesome Dove trail has more variations, and wildlife diversity.