Martin Creek Lake State Park

Featuring an island, an old pine tree plantation, and a power plant.

We went to Martin Creek Lake State Park right after visiting Caddo Lake and their magical Cypress tree grove. Bryce’s sister, her boyfriend, and their dog were tagging along with us to the East Texas state parks the weekend consisted of. It’s always fun bringing new people into our little adventures, even if they are Ironman racing, cross country running superstars. After refueling with lunch from Wendy’s, we arrived at Martin Creek Lake and set out on an almost four mile hike throughout the entire park.

A feature of this park that I found super interesting is that there is a little island with a 1.2 mile trail along the edge of the land, providing views all around the park. This was the first of three trails that our group ventured on. We crossed a bridge (my favorite) that some kids were fishing on to get over to the island, and shortly came up on a little outlet to the water for Sarah (the dog) to cool off a bit. We walked around the island a little more and came up on a viewpoint for a power plant on Martin Creek Lake; this power plant provides energy daily to over a million homes! After making our way around the rest of the island, Sarah and Quinton went swimming in the lake before we drove over to the next two trailheads.

The last couple hours of our visit consisted of walking the Old Henderson Road and Harmony Hill Loop trails for a total of 2.7 miles. Old Henderson Road actually used to be a historic trade route from Henderson,TX to Shreveport, LA. The rest of these trails took us past creeks, an old pine tree plantation, and towards the park headquarters for some pictures next to the park entrance sign. The pine tree plantation was a very cool spot because all the trees are lined up and evenly spaced apart. It made for great pictures!

After collecting over 7 miles and 15,000 steps on the day, we all piled back into the truck and drove back to Longview for a quiet night of hot dogs from Amy’s favorite stand and Parks and Recreation (the tv show haha). The next day, we would leave Longview for a stop at our next, and final, state park on our journey out east: Tyler State Park.