The Trailist: Woodcrest Nature Park in Live Oak has mix of wooded and open trails

The San Antonio area boasts several large, marquee parks with miles of trails, along with an ever-expanding greenway network of paved paths that follow its many creeks and rivers. But it often surprises me how many smaller, lesser-known parks tucked inside neighborhoods also allow residents to experience nature. 

Woodcrest Nature Park is a 32-acre island of green space in a sea of suburbia. The park is smaller and less well-known than Live Oak’s Main City Park, located only about a mile away. I had been to the Main City Park a few times to play disc golf and didn’t learn until this week about Woodcrest, which has more natural space and trails.

Woodcrest seems popular with people living nearby, and I saw plenty of children and teenagers biking and riding scooters along the concrete paths, along with a few runners.

Except for a parking lot, bathrooms and a small playground, the park is left mostly in its natural state. Wildflowers were blooming alongside many of the trails, and the forest was a mix of low, brushy trees and more densely forested oaks that keep many of the trails shaded, even during a hot afternoon. While I noticed some of the invasive Ligustrum trees that often choke out native species in many urban San Antonio parks, they hadn’t spread as rampantly as I’ve seen in other areas.

It took me about an hour to map out all the trails, frequently doubling back to explore some of the smaller paths after completing the larger loops. As with many parks in the San Antonio area, the trail map didn’t exactly match the trails. All the concrete trails on the map were the same as advertised, but several of the dirt paths didn’t match either the map or the signs pointing to where they likely used to be.

The park allegedly has six unpaved paths, five of them short tracks through the forest that branch off the concrete trails. Great Horned Overlook, which cuts through the center of the park, was the most defined. The roughly 0.2-mile trail branches off Tiger Swallow Trail — a riff on the tiger swallowtail butterfly — and follows a forested ridge through the center of the park. Another unpaved trail called Indian Blanket Path is navigable, cutting through an open field off Tiger Swallow Trail with a few isolated trees.

Though the map shows it connects to a concrete path called Buck Crossing, I found that Great Horned Overlook stopped at a ravine, cut through by a creek. I was surprised by the volume of water in the creek after spring rains and the steepness of the banks, which looked at least 15 feet high. The edges of the ravine are loose and brushy, and I found it difficult to stoop-walk down to the creek below. Be careful not to slip while exploring that area. Though water clearly fills many of the low-lying areas after rains, I didn’t see as much trash washed in as I typically see after storms in many San Antonio area parks. But I did notice a half-submerged basketball hoop poking out of the creek in the ravine.

Armadillo Alley was another unpaved trail that actually existed, with signs marking the beginning of the path that departs from the northern edge of Tiger Swallow Trail. This path of mowed grass is actually longer than shown on the map, following a drainage area north less than a half mile to Forest Bluff.

Armadillo Alley supposedly connects to a dirt path called Red Eared Turtle Way, which parallels the northern portion of a concrete path called Diamondback Way. This path had clearly been a trail at one point, and the signs marking its endpoints are still standing. However, a lack of maintenance and foot traffic over the years means the forest has retaken the trail, and I couldn’t distinguish any path through the understory.

Whitetail Loop also has been lost to the forest. The path was supposed to be located off a concrete trail called Red-Tailed Hawk Loop on the southernmost area of the park, southeast of the parking lot. Other than the signs marking where it used to be, I saw no trace of the trail, which once looped through a low-lying, relatively open area of trees.

One area of dirt trail doesn’t appear on the map, though it was probably the best-defined of the dirt trails I found at the park. Shaped like a wobbly tuning fork, it connects Red-Tailed Hawk Loop to a concrete trail called Cardinal Access, which ends at a residential street called Denae Drive. When I got home, I checked the Bexar County Tax Assessor-Collector’s map and found that the trail cuts through an area that looks like it has been parceled out into future homesites. While some belonged to the City of Live Oak, several of the parcels listed private property, though I saw no fences, signs, or purple paint designating it as such.

White-Wing Dove Access, a concrete path that connects to Red-Tailed Hawk Loop, also extends farther than the map shows. It follows a gravel access road with power lines, separated from a drainage area by a line of trees. It looked like a popular spot for exploring and off-roading. The ownership wasn’t clear from the tax map, but I’m guessing it belongs to CPS Energy, like other power line roads in that area. I also didn’t see any signs or fences there.

With my visit happening during the heat of the day, I didn’t notice many birds or other wildlife, except for deer. They allowed me to get within a few arm’s lengths away, staring at me expectantly as if I had food for them. One doe, I noticed, seemed to be hiding something behind her back. As I got closer, a white-spotted fawn jumped out from behind her to cross the path. If had more time to spend there, I would have followed some of the small game paths and other traces through the woods.

Overall, I found the park to be a shady retreat from the endless sprawl of San Antonio’s northeastern suburbs. While it may not be worth driving across the city to visit, I would make Woodcrest a regular running spot if I lived nearby.