Nice walking trails! The “talking trees” trail includes recorded messages with facts about the different types of trees. Trails are not stroller friendly. Wear your hiking boots.

Beautiful well kept set of walking trails with educational materials.

Watershed Extension Loop closed 08/21/2020. All other trails open!

This is an great place for trail running as well.Theres plenty of rolling hills and one tuff hill to climb. By far my favorite place to run in the county! Great place for hiking, walking dogs, picnics & enjoying time with family and friends.

Terrific forest hikes that are not difficult. Beautiful lake to walk along and have a picnic. Be sure your dogs are leashed and tagged and up-to-date with rabies vaccinations. very important and the park rangers will stop and remind you of this, kindly, of course, but remind you nonetheless.

Pretty scenery; was able to comfortably social distance even on a Saturday.

This place has a nice gate and a long dirt road with plenty of Trees everywhere inside. I love some Tress i tell yah what.

Nice state park to enjoy the hiking trails and nature during these challenging times.

Great spot for a hike, but if youre looking for somewhere to bike, skip the trip here as youre only allowed to use bikes on the gravel path leading into the site.

Great peaceful park with lots of nature scenery and wildlife to view from well kept trails and bridges.

Beautiful, peaceful place. Great place to bring kids... Gentle trails, pond with loads of fish and turtles for young curious minds to observe, cool woods on a hot Carolina summer day, rangers dedicated to good stewardship of the land. Nice picnic spots and restrooms available. Little streams along the trail one could splash a foot in while sitting on a rock and listening to the sound of a small waterfall.

I take my grand kids there a lot when they are in town. We go see and feed the turtles and just walk around. Sometimes we’ll have a picnic. They love it and so do I.The place is clean and well maintained.They are closed on Mondays and the seasonruns from March to November.

Being a herpetologist at UNC I love this park for its diversity of snakes. Ive never visited without spying at least a few Black snakes and if you like the more adventurous trails, Copperheads sun at trail s edge. Awesome park for nature lovers. Hug the lake edge at the north end where several Copperheads may be seen along with several large Snapping turtles. Just wish it was open year round.

Wonderful State Park, I really enjoyed walking the one of the several trails located throughout the park. The educational aspect of the park is pretty cool as well with the talking rocks with little tidbits of information. There are restrooms and areas to BBQ and have a picnic. There is also a little creek/waterfall although when I visited it, it was mostly dried up. I highly recommend this wonderful NC State Park!

Excellent educational forest for families and kids. My only knock is that it opens at 11am on the weekends. Makes it pretty much impossible to use on the weekends, during the summer months.

Shaded parking under trees. Clean gravel paths. Easy walking. But trails could be marked better to give distance of loop.

Amazing walking trail. Did the Red trail and it was so nice! Looking forward to the Watershed trail! So quiet and calm!

I took my son for MY birthday. I am in my 30s and loved it. My 3 year old laughed the whole time. Very clean and well maintained!

This Forest is really well maintained and I loved the atmosphere. There is a pound, tables to pick ick and grills are available.Ill keep running here.

If i could give 0 stars i would. We drove all the way there just to find the gates closed stating the park is closed for winter maintenance. Had i know this i would have never driven here. Its not stated on the website

Enjoy walking through the woods with granddaughter!

Such a great place to hike, whatever your abilities. Beautiful stream with little waterfalls, bridges and fun but non obtrusive learning stations. Long paths, short paths, open spaces, places to sit and rest, wildlife and more. A true gem tucked away in Johnston county!

Amazing place. My 4 year old and I enjoyed our day here. Its kid safe too.

I enjoy walking the park every weekend with my hiking group. Well kept and maintained and appreciate the rangers.

I come here often as I live about 5 min away. Certainly a hidden gem. Ive never experienced anything negative here aside from fellow visitors speeding down the road and riding my tail very uncomfortably. The signs all clearly say 15. Please pay attention to the rules!!! Keep this place nice and peaceful.

Great trails. Clearly marked. Love this place.

Amazing trails. This place is a hidden gem.

Great place to go. Staff are excellent. Treasure for us here in NC.

Ranger on a power trip...experienced by more than one person it seems.Ive been taking my family here for 10 + years. Had my daughter out there since she was a wee one and were still coming out here to hike. I just recently added my son into the mix. So Ive made some very nice memories out here with my family.Ive always used the trails responsibly, never littered, etc....Ive always thought it odd that in the 10 or so years Ive been coming out here Ive seen a ranger maybe 3 times. Once years ago when I saw a group of school age kids being led. Saw some ZZTop looking character mowing some grass. Then this:Few months ago, we were hiking. Had my daughter and son with us. It was getting near closing time so we headed back to the lot. Wife informs me shes dropped the keys somewhere on the trail...Holy Crap..... This was the tree trail. So started at one end and she started at the other. Asked everyone we saw if theyd seen em. We eventually found em and got back to the car at about 15 min after closing. Headed on out, passed the office(didnt see sign of life anywhere), got to the gate - locked. So I got out , well, guess Im gonna go back and see if I can find a ranger to help...No need. Here comes one at high speed. Stops ridiculously close to the car and hops out. Im already out so I start to tell him out situation..cuts me off and starts with the closing time posted clearly and did we not see it? etc. etc. So I then get it out why we were late getting out(15 min)..He mentions something about a couple mentioning something about it. He then goes into this complete nonsense about this automatic chain of events I almost set off by being 15 min past gate close. Search teams being sent out, tax payer dollars being burned, man hours being spent...uhhhh...sure, wont happen again, can you just go ahead and unlock the gate? nope, still gonna make you stand here and listen to me because I have the key and theres no other way out. So then he goes into how in this situation my first priority is to get up to the office to inform staff. Well, tear your brain away from that for a moment and use common sense. I had no keys, no way to start my car, were in the woods looking for our keys(which are in the woods), but Im going to walk my butt all the way up to the office, a good way away from the trail head...no, probably not. Just going to find my keys and then ask a friendly ranger to let me out while I apologize for wasting time. I didnt say all this, just agreed so hed let us out....not yet. License check time...in before someone quotes the authority of a ranger. I could care less. There was no reason to check my license or really to hold my family and I there for no reason whatsoever. I thought about saying no you cant check my license, at this point I was tired of the trip. But he seemed like the kinda guy who would probably bring the police in just to prove he can make me do what he wants. So gave him the license, sat there another 10 min, then finally he unlocked the gate.Ive been back many times since and will continue to do so. Its a great place for families to come and enjoy the day. A real positive state provided area. Very glad to have it here.The level of unfriendliness wasnt something I expected from a place thats always seemed so friendly.-Josh

A T M O S P H E R E

Closed December through march

This is a wonderful park for a quiet day.

They dont allow fishing, but state law says fishing is allowed in state educational forests.

Best place on earth (but Im a little biased...my dad is the Forest Supervisor)!