In the middle of Stone Oak’s sprawling tracks of houses lies a nice piece of nature: Stone Oak Park and Stone Oak Natural Area. Stone Oak Park is at 20395 Stone Oak Pkwy, San Antonio, Texas.
The park itself offers an easy paved out and back trail. It is about 1.5 miles to South end of the trail and the turnaround, so this can either be a nice walk, or a good 5k run. Going South, there is a bit of a downhill, so you might want to save at least a little energy for the uphill on the way back.
The nicely paved concrete trail offers multiple fitness stations along the way, and a few side access trails to the surrounding apartments and houses. You can see the houses and civilization on the hills surrounding the trail, so this is more an inner-city trail than a nature get away.
A nice attraction, at about 3/4 a mile in, is the tunnel structures under Evans Road:
The trail runs through the center one, but if you are a kid (or like me), it is fun to run back and forth through all of them. Given that, this is not a good place to come after a heavy rain; this is the Mud Creek drainage, and the drainage tunnels are there for a reason.
The North Side
You can also go North from the parking lot, crossing Stone Oak Parkway, and explore the Stone Oak Natural Area. The area offers a few miles of trails, some offroad, and a Dam to explore. You can see on my GPS track, there is a mile-ish loop from the parking lot. There is also a longer loop that extends farther North, plus multiple side trails, including up to the dam.
Stone Oak Park Map
One of the reasons this area has been set aside is for aquifer drainage into caves on the property. Bear Cave is on the left side of the loop (toward the dam). The cave itself is heavily fortified with metal grate, so you can only peer over the edge into it. The North trail even has some more exercise stations, including a pull-up bar.
Pro Tips:
- Small Parking lot, additional parking is on the North side of Stone Oak Parkway
- A porta-potty is located at the trail head
- Head South for 3/4 mile to see the drainage tunnels!
- Easy paved concrete trail makes for a nice 5k, out and back.
- Head North for a little but more wilderness and some off-road opportunities
- Playground at the trailhead for kids, and fitness stations along the trail for kids of all ages.
Love the tunnels on the trails! I bet kids would love to play in them! Are there different sizes of them?
They are all pretty much the same height. The ones in the outside are very dark– and spooky! When you are walking through them, you can’t even see the ground.