It’s a normal morning, I’m taking the first 20 minutes of my day to read through the news headlines and drink my coffee and I come across this:

“A popular state park southeast of Dallas is poised to become an exclusive community with multimillion-dollar homes and a private golf course.”

 Sarah Bahari in The Dallas Morning News

Needless to say, despite being sick last week, I had to get out there and visit the park before it’s gone for good. Saturday I packed myself up, watery-eyes and sinus-y, and headed over 2.5 hours to visit the park.

I arrived at the park at exactly 4:04pm, which is quite unfortunate. The park headquarters closed at 4:00pm, and there was not a SINGLE person around at 4:04 to stamp my Texas State Parks Passport, so that cute little stamp corner will forever be blank for the rest of time.

Fairfield Lake State Park

Fairfield Lake State Park opened in 1976 when the state leased the 1,460 acre park from Texas Utilities.

The history of the area around Fairfield Lake State Park is like that of much of rural eastern Texas. It was hunted and fished on by Native Americans who were later displaced by Anglo farmers. They then planted cotton and corn and slaves milled and plowed the land. Since World War II, the land has been used for cotton farming and cattle ranching mostly.

Until Texas Utilities built a dam and created Fairfield Lake and the park it is today (until end of February 2023).

Trail Hiking Experience

There are two mini trails in this park, a scenic loop and a birdwatching loop, as well as one typical trail, and one LONG trail that encompasses the park. On my visit, I was only able to hike the Nature trail (a typical hike) and the scenic loop before sunset.

The Nature Trail

The first hike I did was their most popular one – The Nature Trail. It’s only about 2 miles in total and allows hikers to take in beautiful views while rounding a piece of the lake through the forest.

Since the land was recently sold to developers, on my visit, I could also see a few areas near the coastline that were already bulldozed down in preparation for construction. That was a bit of a bummer.

Although I know the park had many visitors that day, and I saw more people on this trail than I’ve seen at any of my previous hikes so far, it was still relatively quiet, which I appreciated. I saw ducks swimming in the lake, heard tons of different birds in the trees, and heard the low rustling of the water on the shore.

Scenic Loop

The second trail I was able to hop on before sundown was the short half-mile scenic loop. This was the most family-friendly trail I’ve yet to be on. Not only were there multiple stops with benches to rest on, but it had a park-sponsored interactive activity.

There were temporary signs posted along the way with information about spiders and why they were good for the environment and how they make webs and all kinds of kid-friendly material to keep little ones entertained along the way.

Although I hike alone, I found it to be a cute way to get children excited about being outside and the signs were posted in perfect distance to allow kids to be active, but stop and engage before they got bored. Kudos to the planners of that installation!

Unfortunately, since I had decided to leave home late and got to the park around 4:00pm, I only had about 2 hours to explore before the sun went down so I wasn’t able to hike the long trail that wraps around the edge of the park (at 5.3 miles one way!) nor was I able to circle through the Birdwatching trail.

My Overall Review

Although I didn’t plan nearly enough time to visit this park, I was still very impressed at how beautiful it was. I love a forest hike, especially when there are rest stops with benches overlooking water. The views were great, there were families out fishing on the water, and every camp site was booked the day I visited.

I spoke to one of my colleagues who often travels in her RV to different Texas Parks and she said Fairfield Lake was actually her favorite one!

The drive into the park is really really long. I knew I was driving to the end of the pavement to hike the nature trail, but the road just kept going and going! I was surprised at the length of the drive through the park.

In addition to seeing this park in person, I’ve seen so many recent posts about it in the Facebook groups I follow. I’ve loved seeing everyone get out there and show support for our state parks for one last hurrah before it’s all torn down!

I would say this is a great park to visit, buuuut unless you’re joining the exclusive millionaire’s club… you probably wont get the chance if you haven’t already. 😭😭