Village Creek / Larsen Sandyland Sanctuary in Texas

by  guest-paddler

A self-supported trip created by guest-paddler

Trip Overview

We met the outfitter, Piney Woods Outfitters, at 9:00am. We parked our car in the parking lot and loaded our gear into their trucks.

We launched at a small boat lading called Baby Galvez. The canoes were quickly unloaded, and we loaded our gear into the canoes. The outfitter furnished us with the canoe, paddles, life jackets and the shuttle upstream. We were given a map and were shown points of interest along the way.

The Creek had a flow of about 1-1.5 miles per hour. The huge Cypress trees, long leaf and lobloly pine, river birch, and Oak trees were beautiful. It was so quite and peaceful. There were many bird sightings along the way, blue heron, king fishers, egrets, eastern bluebirds, and several painted buntings, along with the piliated woodpecker. We kept our camera ready for the ivory billed, but he escaped our watchful eyes.

We paddled about 2 hours then stopped on the most beautiful sand bar, it must have been 1000 feet long. After exploring some and wading some we climbed back into our canoes and proceeded down the creek.

It was easy paddling on the first part of the trip, the lower part was a little more eventful only because of the more bends and turns of the creek. The sandbars were at every bend of the creek. In some places we could touch the bottom with our paddles but in the channels is was deeper.

We stopped several more time just to marvel at the beauty of what we could see and remembering back at what it used to be. We found the take out, just where it was supposed to be, unloaded the canoes and loaded up in our own cars and sent home.

It was so beautiful and relaxing. The trip was wonderful, the scenery was surreal, and at times picturesque. Something to put on a calender. There are also overnight camping trips available.

Accommodations:

Village Creek State Park offers camping or R.V. hook-ups, and there is the usual assortment of hotel & motels in Beaumont, only 10 miles away.

Outfitting:

Piney Woods Outfitters

921 South Main Street

Lumberton, TX 77657

Phone: (409) 751-0911

website: www.canoetexas.com/

Fees:

There are no fees or permits required, just the cost to rent the canoe.

Directions:

From Houston, go east on Interstate Highway 10 about 120 miles to Beaumont. Take Hwy. 96 north to Village Creek Bridge.
On weekends Piney Woods Outfitters usually sets up a temporary office there.

Resources:

The only maps that I used were provided by the outfitter, which were topographical maps.

Trip Details

  • Sport/Activity: Kayaking
  • Skill Level: Beginner
  • Water Type: River/Creek (Up to Class II)

Trip Location