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The Cedar Bayou Hiking Trail is located near the Cedar Bayou Marina in Gordonville, Texas and is part of the Cross Timbers Hiking Trail system that starts over at Juniper Point. According several sources the Cedar Bayou Trail is 1.5 miles long but being part of the larger Cross Timbers Hiking Trails you walk for miles if you wanted to. The trail is rated as moderate. Make sure to bring $5 a day for parking. Even parking along the road requires payment. Marina staff does check on occasion to see if visitors paid to park. There is also sign in log sheet to sign. This tells emergency services and marina staff that you are on the trail and what time you arrived/left the trail.
Cedar Bayou Hiking Trail and Marina
The marina is like almost any other marina I’ve seen. It’s well maintained and has plenty of nice boats and house boats parked there. The Marina has options for lodging and RV camping. Of course there is camping options along the trail. There are also public toilets at the Marina. You will not find any on the trail.
The trail head is difficult to find and misleading. You need to know the trail before going out for the first time or take someone with you that knows the trail. We used AllTrails and several friends advice to find the trail head. It still took about 20 minutes to figure it out. We ended up walking back to Cedar Bayou Resort sign and start from there. Looking at the sign you see the trail on both sides of the road if the brush is cut back. On your left it takes you to Juniper Point. I’ve been told there are several trail options you can take almost immediately both of them are more difficult for those not use to hiking.
On your left is the official Cedar Bayou Trail entrance. There isn’t a trail head sign. There’s just a sign that shows a hiker and directional signs pointed to all trails that this trail leads to. Follow that little trail and it will take you to the main trail.
The trail isn’t easy for those that aren’t use to hills. The Cross Timbers Trail System is considered one of the more difficult trails in the North Texas area because the steep inclines and declines that you have to deal with the entire time. There aren’t that many level walking areas.
Most the trail is marked well enough to keep you on the trail. If you aren’t paying attention you might find yourself on an unofficial trail. You will find two trails that run parallel to each other. The green blazing trail markers are for hikers and the red blazing trail markers are for mountain bikes.
As I mentioned earlier, the trail is a narrow single person trail. You will need to step off the trail if another person wants to pass by, you want to pass them, or a mountain bike is on the same trail as you. The trail surface is either sandy, packed sandy material, or a mixture of dirt and gravel. The trails will be slippery in the rain or just after it. Do not attempt these trails after it rains and you will find plenty of mud for about a week after heavy rains. As the trails wined along Lake Texhoma it follows the contours of the land. You will be going up to one ridge and down the other side. The elevation gains aren’t bad. I think the highest gain was about a 100 feet. There are times the trail skirts the edge of a cliff. Sometimes that edge overlooks the water and at other times it’s a straight down drop to the ground below. Also keep a look out for exposed roots, partially buried rocks, and loose rocks. This section of the trail is one of the easier parts of the trail system.
Our Experience
We only did this trail once. We will do the trail again, mainly to explore parts of the trail we haven’t explored yet. We aren’t ready for 5+ miles of up and down. We were only able to get a round trip of 2.75 miles and that was because we were running out of daylight and did not want to risk a return trip at dusk. We had to stop about every half mile because of my health for a water break or to catch a breath. We got almost to the 1.5 mile mark where we took a 30 minute break to eat a late lunch.
We met a couple other hikers along the way and they were nice and we spoke for a few minutes. They even gave us some leads on other trails nearby (Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge that’s about bout 4 hours away from us and worth the drive).
We had plan to return during the winter and spring season but I had accident over winter break and broke my wrist and had several other medical issues pop last spring that kept us from hiking anything difficult. We will be returning this fall and plan to make visits to the area until it gets too cold and wet to have any fun.
Tips for the Trail
- Bring plenty of water for the hike. It gets hot and you burn a lot more energy as you go up hill.
- Bring snacks that are sweet and salty. Energy building sacks such as, granola, protein bars, and jerky is what I prefer. I bring snacks for hikes that will be longer than hour.
- Wear sunscreen and bring extra and reapply as the instructions suggest. Even though you are in the trees, you will get dappled sun coming through the trees and you will burn over time.
- Hiking sticks are your friends. They will help with your balance, you can lean into them as you go up hill or use them to lean into if you start to lose your balance. They will even take some of the weight off your back and make the hike a little easier.
Download the trail map and have a good reliable GPS service on your phone. Internet doesn’t always work. Apps such as AllTrails Pro allow you download the official trail map and it will track you as you go. It’s supposed to warn you if go off trail.
About the Images
Images from the Cedar Bayou Hiking Trail were shot on mid to late sunny afternoon with my Sony a6000 and my Sony SELP18105G E PZ 18-105mm F4 G OSS with a K&F Polarized Lens and shot by hand. I then edited the images with Adobe Lightroom CC and Topaz Labs Denoise AI and Topaz Labs Sharpen AI and DXO NIK Collection to clean up the images, remove noise, and recover the lost details.
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