Purtis Creek State Park: Beaver Slide Nature Path (Blog Hike #1118)

Trail: Beaver Slide Nature Path
Hike Location: Purtis Creek State Park
Geographic Location: northwest of Athens, TX (32.36358, -96.00283)
Length: 1.7 miles
Difficulty: 1/10 (Easy)
Date Hiked: February 2026
Overview: A short and mostly flat lollipop loop with nice views of Purtis Creek State Park Lake.
Park Information: https://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/purtis-creek
Hike Route Map:

On The Go Map

Photo Highlight:

Hike Video: (coming March 16, 2027)

Directions to the trailhead: From Athens, take US 175 northwest 10 miles to the town of Eustace and FM 316.  Turn right on FM 316.  Drive FM 316 north 3.6 miles to the state park entrance on the left.  Turn left to enter the park, pay the entrance fee, and drive the main park road into the park's campground.  The signed parking area for the Beaver Slide Nature Path is on the north side of the campground, on the left as you drive in.

The hike: Located an hour southeast of Dallas, Purtis Creek State Park consists of 1582 acres of reverting farmland.  The United States Soil Conservation Service built the park's 355 acre lake in 1980 to control floods and to provide for local fishing.  The park opened in 1988, and fishing remains a popular activity here today.

            Like many Texas state parks near the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, Purtis Creek State Park has a rural and rustic flavor with only the usual amenities.  The park offers a 56-site developed campground, the usual aquatic recreation on its lake, and 5 trails totaling 5.8 miles.  All but 2 of the park's trails are designed by mountain bikers for mountain bikers, and I had already done several hikes on that kind of trail on my February 2026 Texas hiking trip.  Thus, I decided to hike the park's longest hiker-only trail, the Beaver Slide Nature Path described here.  The Beaver Slide Nature Path is primarily an access trail for the park's lakeside primitive campsites, and it was a nice but very popular trail when I came here on a warm Saturday morning in late February.

Campground trailhead

            From the signed trailhead campground parking lot, the wide dirt Beaver Slide Nature Path heads gradually downhill on a wide double switchback.  The forest is a mixture of oak/hickory deciduous forest and pines.  This trail's best view of Purtis Creek State Park Lake emerges just after you hike around the first inlet.  I saw several cormorants perched on stumps in the lake, and this is one of the best places in the park for wildlife viewing,

Cormorant on a stump

            At 0.4 miles, the trail splits to form its loop; a bench and vault toilet stand at this intersection.  The shortest route to the primitive campsites is to the right, so I angled left to avoid the primitive campground traffic.  The trail climbs almost imperceptibly before beginning a mild descent.  The difference between maximum and minimum elevations on this hike is less than 40 feet, so all grades are gradual.

Hiking the Beaver Slide Nature Path

            0.7 miles into the hike, you reach the first (or last, if you were going the way most campers hike in to their campsites) of 13 spur trails that exit left, one for each primitive campsite.  The campsites are lettered A through M, and going this direction you will pass all 13 spur trails in reverse alphabetical order.  A board at the trailhead tells you which campsites are available and which campsites are reserved.  While you never want to walk into an occupied campsite, it is worth hiking one of the short spurs down to an unoccupied campsite: all of the sites have nice lakeside locations, with site E being my favorite view across the lake.

Primitive campsite M

            After passing all 13 spur trails, you return to the bench and vault toilet to close the loop.  Turn left to retrace your steps out the "stick" of the lollipop to complete the hike.  If you want to do more hiking, the park's mountain bike trails are also open to hikers.  The Red and Blue Trails offer nice loops through upland forest similar to what you see on this hike, while the Green Trail partially follows the lakeshore and leads to the lake's dam.