Entered the trail at 7:40am at the Creek Camp entrance on 511. There were time where I thought the scale on the trail map was really off. The prescribed burn scars were still on many of the pines and through the hike I was trying to guess when it occured. The picture on here said it was in 2007 and I guessed between 2-3 years from the amount of leaf litter and shrub brush that had grown. The pine savannas were really pretty with their clean switch grass understories. I reached the Neches Overlook at 11:20. I stopped to photograph a beaver at one of the ponds for about 15 minutes so give or take on that. The last 2 miles of the climb on the bluff had me mouth breathing but nothing strenuous. The rest of the trail is flat. The view from the overlook was anticlimatic. They obviously cleared some of the adjacent trees but, it is what it is. A view of the forest. 511-3* supposedly goes from the gravel 511 to the overlook. But you sure as hell aren't going to make it on a 2 wheel drive much less a car. The recent rain in the area had made a serious mud hole wash out of the clay road down the utility right of way. 4x4 and high wheel clearance are a minimum. I could have traversed it in my crossover but there were parts I wasn't willing to take a chance of getting stuck so far into the woods. I came to hike anyways. After an apple and muffin lunch I decided to walk back to my car via the road to save time. Being winter, the sun starts setting at 4:00pm and that would roughly be the time I'd make it back to my car if I returned on the trail. I hiked the utility line to what I thought was an extension of 511. But the line came to a dead end at a gate that didnt have a road or any sign of traffic on it for 10 years, no joke. What was there was a week old or less bulldozer path that marked the property boundary against someone elses fenced land. Well the bulldozer had to have come in somewhere so I followed it. It came out next to a gated oilpad road not marked on the map. I followed it, which DID eventually merge into 511. The map was really vague but atleast it was correct. Reached my car at 2:20pm. Nearly half the time it took to go from the car to the overlook on the trail. I was walking a little faster and on straight flat ground. Animal sightings: Fenches, Warblers, CROWS, 1 beaver, 1 buck, 3 does, Bald eagle being harassed by crows, armadillo. 1 skeleton of a coyote.
