The Village Creek & Tupelo Trails | Village Creek State Park

We’re flashing back to February when we went camping at Village Creek State Park.

Our morning walk along the Village Creek and Tupelo Trails was very quiet. Aside from encountering a few people near the primitive campsite near the trailhead, we found no one else on the trails that morning.

There were plenty of Nyssa aquatica, tupelo, specimens lining the bayous and bottoms that drained out into Village Creek.

Village Creek was calm and serene that morning.

Adjacent to the trail we found a couple of jack-in-the-pulpits!

The Village Creek trail deadended into the beach at Village Creek. We spent quite a bit of time scouting the edge of the water for mussels.

I think this one might be a Louisiana fat mucket mussel…but I’m not positive. I was leaning towards Texas fat mucket but its range is central and southwest Texas rivers and creeks, not east Texas.

Once we were done with our creek explorationswe found the Tupleo Trail that veered off of the Village Creek Trail, forming a horeshoe as it looped back for the Village Creek Trail further towards the trailhead.

We came across a pretty tupelo slough, reminding us of our time working nearby in the Beaumont Unit of the Big Thicket.

It’s hard to gauge size on this hollowed out log in this photo, but it was quite large!

I liked that these trails took us through a diversity of habitats all within just a few hundred yards of each other. It kept the hike vibrant and interesting as we ambled through the woods.