Angelina / Davy Crockett NF OHV
The Angelina and Davy Crockett National Forests form the core of the Sabine National Forests complex in the East Texas Pineywoods: the only national forest land in Texas, occupying the rolling longleaf pine and loblolly pine country of deep East Texas in Angelina, Nacogdoches, Trinity, Houston, and San Augustine counties. The OHV trail system operates on designated forest roads and trails through both forests, providing the primary public-land off-highway vehicle riding in Texas outside the private OHV park scene centered on the Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston metropolitan areas. Angelina National Forest (755,000 acres) surrounds Sam Rayburn Reservoir, the largest Corps of Engineers lake in Texas, and the Davy Crockett National Forest (160,000 acres) sits to the north and west in the Neches River bottomland country, two geographically distinct units sharing the same administrative office in Lufkin. The East Texas Pineywoods landscape is fundamentally different from the Hill Country and Trans-Pecos terrain that defines the Texas OHV imagination: instead of limestone canyons and cedar scrub, the Angelina and Davy Crockett forests traverse the rolling red-clay hills of the West Gulf Coastal Plain under a closed canopy of loblolly pine, shortleaf pine, sweetgum, water oak, and bottomland hardwoods. The terrain is moderate but varied: the red clay soil produces significantly different traction characteristics wet versus dry, the forest roads thread between the pine plantation blocks and the natural longleaf restoration areas managed by the Forest Service, and the creek drainages add technical interest. The Sam Rayburn and Lake Livingston corridors provide major lake-and-OHV combination trip potential. Houston (2.5 hours) and Dallas-Fort Worth (3 hours) represent massive drive markets. Lufkin Ranger District (936-639-8501) manages current OHV route designations.