Alex Smith County Park on the TX/AR Border

I find a lot of new places to explore by looking on Google maps, and I recently found Alex Smith County Park in Miller County, AR. https://www.facebook.com/Alex-Smith-County-Park-273743109956783/

It's about an hour and ten minutes from where I live in Longview, TX, and a few minutes outside of Atlanta, TX. I went mostly to check out the fishing lake and the hiking trails. Unfortunately, the lake was too shallow for fishing, but a park visitor told me that it's usually much deeper; the area is going through a dry spell. The man introduced himself as Gary and told me that the land surrounding the park is public land that stretches for miles. I asked, "Oh, is it a park? What's it called?" He said he didn't know.

I looked it up when I got home and it's the Sulphur River WMA. https://www.agfc.com/en/zone-map/770/

If you look on that map for a road named Smith Park Access, that little square cut out is Alex Smith Park. Gary told me that are very few trails in there (the WMA), but the trees are wide apart, so hiking is easy. He also said that the county has been trying hard to attract visitors to Smith Park, and just opened showers and restrooms for campers, so...you know what to do. Go iNat it!

I want spend some time this year at Smith Park and the adjoining WMA since it's not far. The WMA will be a challenge to iNat because of the lack of trails; I'll be tromping through the woods with my GPS and map.

There is another WMA a few miles from that location---LaFayette County WMA. https://www.agfc.com/en/zone-map/722/
I'm going to try visiting that one, too.

Edit 01-31-2022

The people at the AGFC were kind enough to send me a .kml file of Sulphur River WMA so I can generate a checklist. Aweseome!

Posted on January 31, 2022 04:24 AM by