Piedmont Ridge: Potential future trails
Potential Piedmont Trails Projects
After leaf drop in late fall, it’s cooler, there’s less of a poison ivy threat and there are fewer bugs, and former trails and critter paths are easier to see. But the hearty might want to start flagging potential trails now.
Estimated completion for The Loop’s soft-surface White Rock Bluffs Trail (from Lawnview DART Station to Comanche Storytelling Place), including signage and kiosks, is winter 2026-27. Friends of Piedmont trail map will be included in the kiosks. So we need to get potential new trails flagged and approved by Dallas Parks by late fall.
Here’s Dallas Parks’ protocol that even professional trail builders must follow.
- Flag the proposed trail, removing only enough privet and branches to create a narrow path.
- Dallas Parks inspects proto-trail and approves (we hope).
- Native plant pro inspects route for rare plant communities.
- Finalize trail.
All trail names and routes below are subject to change.
Black Walnut Trail
Scyene Overlook to DART Crossing to Nowhere
Lovely old woods with some huge trees flourish on the slope between the west side of Scyene Overlook and the DART service road. The slope ends at the White Rock Bluffs Trail segment connecting the DART crossing-to-nowhere to the Renda Meadow Loop. Joe, a Friends of Piedmont co-founder, did a rough exploration for a trail here and found it fabulous. Should be shady and relatively breezy in the summer.
ROUTE: Spin off west from Scyene Overlook Trail as it nears Scyene. Hew close to the road to get around a swampy area. LiDAR shows a large gully running through the center that will need to be navigated around. But imagine the views and elevation changes as the trail meanders down the slope through the massive Beeman black walnuts toward the DART tracks! A spur can connect with the Triangle Woods Trail, below.
Triangle Woods Trail
A ridgeline trail with rare prairie remnants
A similar forest exists in a triangle west of the DART service road, framed by it, Scyene, and the DART tracks. It has some surprising topography! Plus some Blackland Prairie remnants and a small piece of the famous Beeman black walnut grove.
ROUTE: Goes along and below Scyene to the western tip, meanders back along the slope, and ends near the DART tracks in the black walnuts.
Notes: Both these trails can be accessed by parking at the Colonial Baptist Church on Scyene at Glover Pass. Just need someone who speaks Spanish to ask for permission to use their lot.
Triangle Woods Trail area
BOP 1 & BOP 2
Two side loops off the southern end of JJ Beeman. BOP = Big Old Pecan
Best forest on the ridge is north of the Keeton golf clubhouse where the JJ Beeman Trail terminates. It features huge holdovers from the native pecan orchard that stood there in the early 1900s. Large, decades-old vines and a thick carpet of Virginia creeper give it a primeval feel, plus plentiful elderberry shrubs and uncommon herbaceous natives like elephant’s foot and black snakeroot. There’s even a native magnolia! Will inquire with golf course management to see if creating and maintaining this may become an employee service project. They have cool tools!
ROUTE: Meandering half-circle trails through the wild woods on both sides of the JJ Beeman Trail.
BOP forest area
Other Trail Ideas
- Lacywood Ramble
- A loop that branches off the Lacywood Overlook Trail as it reaches the ridge top, then returns to the trail as it descends.
- Scyene Ramble
- A meandering semi-circle off the Scyene Overlook. Note: By getting permission to remove a few Ashe junipers crowding the Buckley’s oaks and sucking up a lot of rainwater, the rare limestone prairie would restore itself, and the ramble would be much more pleasant.
- Scyene Sidewinder
- A loop off the eastern approach of Scyene Overlook to the big gully alongside the west side of Renda Meadow Loop.
