The Trailist: Judson Nature Trails in Alamo Heights offer shaded, natural-surface paths

Most downtown dwellers are familiar with Olmos Basin Park, whose sports complexes often host soccer and baseball games, with runners circulating its streets, paved paths, and dirt trails. But fewer are familiar with the shady paths on the northern basin in the enclave of Alamo Heights.

The Judson Nature Trails are a small network totaling about 1.5 miles of trail that begin off Viesca Street, on public property adjacent to the City of San Antonio’s Olmos Basin Park. Technically, the Judson Nature Trails are a portion of the slightly larger Hondondo Creek Trails, which also include a path that runs northeast and crosses Greely and Acacia Streets, ending at Morse Street. No motorized vehicles or bikes are allowed on the trails.

With multiple groups involved in taking care of the site, the trails and surrounding forest seem to be in better shape than the nearby Olmos Basin, which is often choked with trash and thick groves of invasive Ligustrum trees that make walking through the forest difficult. The open understory of the Judson Nature Trails allows visitors to appreciate the massive oak trees that have been left undisturbed for hundreds of years.

The trails are also one of the few networks in the downtown area that use natural surface instead of asphalt or concrete, making them more pleasant for trail runners. Visitors looking for a longer walk or run can cross the creek and connect to the loop trail at Olmos Basin Park.

Most of the Judson Nature Trails roughly follow the north bank of Hondondo Creek, which flows out of a neighborhood in Alamo Heights known as the Cottage District. Sally Ann Smith, who co-founded the group that built them, grew up near there and recalled playing alongside the creek and the nearby Olmos Basin as a child. 

“We’d get a boat and we’d paddle down there,” she said. “We had one place we called Laughing Hill where we built this slide. We just had the best time.” 

Most major creeks have their own Texas State Historical Association webpage, but I couldn’t find one for Hondondo Creek. Smith said it’s a misspelled, mispronounced version of the Spanish word hondonada, which online dictionaries say means “dip,” “depression,” or “hollow.”

The area’s use as an official public park dates back to Jack Judson, son of a candy factory owner, collector of magic lanterns, and Alamo Heights mayor for nearly two decades. Smith recalls the first opening of the Judson Nature Trails in 1965. 

“Everybody gathered when they opened them up, and everybody was all dressed up in heels, the men had on coats and ties,” Smith said.

But by the 1980s, the area had fallen into disrepair, according to Barbara Sykes, a San Antonio Audubon Society member who frequently leads birding walks in the area. In response, the society took over stewardship of the trails and expanded them with the help of volunteers. The society also has a “trail house” on the property, though with no heat or air conditioning, it’s seldom used anymore.

Then, in the late 2000s, Alamo Heights residents and elected leaders began discussing expanding the trails. Smith and Betty Stone cofounded a nonprofit called Friends of Hondondo Creek Trails, and the City of Alamo Heights endorsed a trail expansion in its 2009 comprehensive plan. 

The group raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to support the trail expansion. They knew they wanted to keep the trail surface natural, with no asphalt or concrete. They spent months researching a paving material called StaLok, which feels natural underfoot but can hold up to the frequent flooding that happens along the creek.

Other groups have contributed to the area over the years, including Eagle Scouts, who built a small, stone outdoor education amphitheater, and the Alamo Heights-Terrell Hills Garden Club, which built a butterfly garden near the parking lot.

The network’s Central Loop is a short path that goes between the parking lot and butterfly garden. On its northwest side, it connects to the Palm Loop, a short path that doubles back on itself and returns to the Central Loop. Near the amphitheater lies the beginning of the Stacy Trail, named after Julia Stacy, a former board member who died in 2018. That path continues eastward to Greely Street.

The portion of the trail between Greely Street and Acacia Street is named Tres’ Trail after Smith’s son, who she lost in 2007. From Acacia Street, the trail continues past a community garden and through the woods to Morse Street, where a stone bench marks its current end.

South of the Central Loop, spidering paths of unimproved trails connect to the 16 Sisters Trail, which crosses over Hondondo Creek and leads into the Olmos Basin. Most of the network is forested, making it a pleasant place to visit even during these brutally hot summer months. 

Still, the San Antonio Audubon Society stops leading their second Saturday birding walks in the area during July and August. Sykes’s next bird walk will be Sept. 9. During these walks, she’ll often spend her time helping newbie birders learn the basics.

“It is oriented toward beginning birders, but it doesn’t have to be,” Sykes said. “Sometimes, it is just experienced birders that come, but often it’ll be people who are just getting interested in birding.” 

They have plenty to see, even for a relatively small preserve. Red-shouldered hawks and barred owls nest in the creek, and they see familiar species year-round, such as cardinals, Carolina wrens, and golden-fronted woodpeckers. Species like ruby-crowned kinglets, cedar waxwings, hermit thrush, and American robin show up in the winter. Colorful songbirds also stop by during spring and fall migration.

“We’ll get black and white warblers, yellow warblers, Nashville warblers,” Sykes said. “But that’s if we’re lucky.” 

Though the trail mileage is low, with so much shade and non-paved surface to give my knees a break from pounding the pavement in most downtown parks, I plan to start extending my Olmos Basin runs through the Judson Nature Trails. I only wish I had paid them a visit sooner.