By Brandt Mannchen

On January 7, 2026, I visited Sam Houston National Forest (SHNF) to look at Red-cockaded Woodpecker Clusters, Peach Creek, the Lake Conroe Shoreline, and a forest with tall pines and oaks called, “Cathedral Oaks” forest.

It was an overcast day which kept the temperature down, foggy, and a little chilly early in the day.  I walked along Forest Road (FR) 204G when I began my hike.  I followed the road until I came to an old tramway (rail line used to log this forest in the early 1900’s) which headed south toward Lake Conroe and then veered east.

I walked toward the shoreline of Lake Conroe which made me think about an injustice that hasn’t been righted.  When Lake Conroe was completed and filled in 1973 one of the environmental impacts was that 5,000 acres of SHNF, much of it bottomland hardwoods, were flooded and drowned forever.  No land was ever acquired to replace this loss.

The good thing that resulted from Lake Conroe’s creation in SHNF was that there are now some lake vistas that can be enjoyed.  This doesn’t make up for the loss of 5,000 acres of public land but does provide for some beauty to replace the beauty lost in drowned riparian forest.

As I walked toward the lakeshore, I saw about a half dozen Red-cockaded Woodpecker (RCW) clusters.  Clusters are the places where this federally threatened bird lives, breeds, and raises its families.

These areas are usually about 10 acres and are surrounded by about 125 acres of foraging area for the RCW family to use.  RCW’s are unusual because they raise young birds not just with parents but also with young birds from the previous several years.  You could call them “family-values” birds, using a human descriptive phrase.

I also saw on my walk where the U.S. Forest Service (FS) had thinned (logged) areas and hauled off the public trees for sale as lumber and other wood products.  Usually the FS logs about 20-50% of the pine trees in a forest stand.

Unfortunately, the logging left damaged trees with bark torn or scraped off and oozing pine resin.  This, if it is too prevalent, will result in the attraction of southern pine beetles (SPB) or Ips beetles which could kill additional trees including those that have been logged.

I finally got to Peach Creek.  It is an ephemeral (only runs when it rains) stream and I saw where sandy sediment had accumulated after it was carried from uplands down to Lake Conroe.  There is a pretty cove on the lakeshore where Peach Creek empties that has Louisiana Iris and other wetland plants like Dwarf Palmetto.

Unfortunately, feral hogs have rooted up a lot of this shoreline and created fecal and sediment water pollution.  We need a plan to control feral hogs.  I wish we had one.

Some of the forest plants that I saw as I walked to Lake Conroe included:

Water Oak, Yaupon Holly, greenbrier, American Holly, Southern Magnolia, White Ash, Sweetgum, Winged Elm, Elephant-foot, Loblolly Pine, Shortleaf Pine, Southern Red Oak, Post Oak, Red Maple, Little Hip Hawthorn, Dwarf Palmetto, Carolina Buckthorn, American Beautyberry, hickory seedlings, Crow Poison, and Bitterweed.

After visiting Lake Conroe I drove to a different forest.  In the late 1990’s the Sierra Club discovered a forest stand that had over 100-year-old Shortleaf Pine trees along with large Loblolly Pines and White Oaks.  This place is special and I have talked with the FS about a mulching project which it plans for this area.  The Sierra Club gave this area a name, “Cathedral Oaks”, because of the large White Oaks that grow there.

The Sierra Club has urged the FS not to use a large mulching tractor for this 24-acre forest but to use hand tools, like chainsaws, and prescribed burns to reduce the density of Yaupon Holly.  There is a lot of White Oak reproduction in “Cathedral Oaks” which is very unusual.  I haven’t seen any other stand with White Oak in SHNF that has reproduced as well as this forest. 

Mulching with a large tractor and cutting blade would not only disturb and compact the soil, it would cut and kill all the small 2-6-inch diameter White Oaks that have grown in the forest under adult trees.

The success of this acorn reproduction was plain to see since not only were there a lot of White Oak leaves that had fallen from large trees but feral hogs, our nemesis again, had rooted up the soil and fed on the acorns.  Another reason for a specific control plan for feral hogs.  Will we ever get one?

“Cathedral Oaks”, according to FS information, is 135 years old.  This makes it one of the oldest forest stands in SHNF.  The tall and old Shortleaf and Loblolly Pines and White Oaks, along with several ephemeral streams and a bowl-like landform, make this place special and it should be protected as an example of an old-growth forest.

I found my walks in SHNF to be relaxing and comforting.  The silence of the woods, except for a few American Crows and small birds in the canopies, allowed my mind to drain my common concerns and anxieties and brought me a sense of place and peace.

That’s a good reason to visit SHNF, RCW clusters, the Lake Conroe shoreline, and “Cathedral Oaks”.  It sure helped me on that day to remember how wonderful and filled with joy life can be. Try it sometime.  You’ll be glad you did!    

Photos by Brandt Mannchen