By will2121 on November 15, 2009
On Friday, November 13, 2009 I drove out to the Chaparral Trail. It was, to say the least, sad. The first 2.5 miles are paved and then it becomes progressively more overgrown. It looks like the only maintenance has been an occasional mowing. Finally, at mile 7 I had to abandon the trail, there was water across the trail which I could not ford or go around. I did pick up the trail again about a mile later, I rode on some county roads, but the same thing happened again within a half mile.
The water on the trail is one thing but the very poor condition of the trail is too bad. I rode this trail in November and can only imagine how bad the flora and fauna is during the spring and summer.
If you still want to ride this trail the GPS numbers sre: 33 09.721 and 096 21.590.
By dougshep on September 12, 2009
This event was held March 7 2009 to correspond with the local event in downtown Farmersville. This was a Geocaching event called a CITO. (Cache-in-Trash-Out) we picked up trash along the two miles or so of concrete trail running north out of Farmersville. It was a great success and the trail looked great. The newspaper wrote a great article about the event an Geocaching and the Chamber of Commerce donated a booth space for our group.
Prior to the event I mapped the trail from Farmersville to Wolf City. Marking cross roads with GPS coordinates. The following link will take you to the now archived page for the event on Geocaching.com
Just recently the Geocaches now extent all the way to Ladonia so I haven't mapped that far North as of yet. We hope to hold another event next spring. Many of us continue to enjoy and promote the trail.
The towns along the way offer nice rest stops. Farmersville is a great place to eat and plan your hiking, biking or caching trip, Celeste has a quick shop right off the trail and Wolf City has a cafe with great food down town.
Link to maps and other information about the Chaparral Trail
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=e85c9d90-bb7c-4933-baec-73183f404df6
D. Sheppard
South West Arlington Geocachers. (S.W.A.G.)
By stanszafran on August 04, 2009
Hiked the first 7.5 miles from Farmersville out through Merit to its junction with what google maps calls Mud Road. Trail open though narrowed in a few places by vegetation (specifically poison ivy). In Merit, the trailhead there looks like a scrapyard but we had little trouble passing through.
In March 2008, I mountain biked the section of the trail between Roxton and Ben Franklin. Numerous times I encountered barbed-wire fences, no trespassing signs, giant round haybale storage, etc. Near Ben Franklin the trail was blocked with a gate and cattle occupied the area. In the case of the fences and the gates I was able to lift the bike over and continue. I did not see anyone along the route. The condition of the trail was worse than the description above, much more vegetation in sections that made it uncomfortable but still rideable.