Hiking Near the old Paisano Trail at Laguna Atascosa NWR

At Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, a half mile from the Visitor’s Center, a gate blocks access to a trail that is closed to the public. The trail passes through dense thornscrub and traverses beige bluffs above a broad silty tidal flat, Stover Cove, and ends at the old Paisano Trail. I hiked the trail Monday, February 5, 2024, to scout for a proposed group hike with Friends of Laguna Atascosa NWR.

Most of the trail appears to be unnamed. I looked at USGS topo maps as far back as 1935 and found no name for the trail. It does connect with an abandoned, paved road, Paisano Trail, once called Old Runway Road as recently as 2010 on a USGS topo map, which is part of this hike.

In the 1940s, before Laguna Atascosa became a wildlife refuge in 1946, the Harlingen Army Gunnery School used this area for target practice. The gunners from planes and trucks would fire machine guns at targets moving along tracks.  They also conducted bombing runs, according to “Intensive Culture Resources Survey for the Proposed Buena Vista Road Improvements” in “The Index of Texas Archaeology.” Unit VII, the area of Steve Thompson Wildlife Drive, was the gunnery range as well as the area I hiked.

I left the Visitor’s Center parking lot just after sunrise. The flag flew straight in the strong chilly gusts. I walked along Granjeno Trail, bordered on each side with thick brush, for a half mile to an unnamed road that runs northward. I padded up the road somewhat protected from the wind by the brush and trees. I saw no birds but heard Northern Mockingbirds singing.

A mile out I could see a fence and gate marking private land. Three Nilgai Antelopes grazed near the gate on the refuge side, their blue-gray hair pronounced in the morning sun. They stared at me and then bounded into the brush.

I followed the fence a quarter mile and then the trail veered south and then east on the edge of the bluffs with an open view. The dense thornscrub on the other side of the trail showed many signs of wildlife trails. The trail itself had tracks from bobcats, deer, nilgai, racoons and armadillos. A Northern Cardinal perched atop the thorns of a bush and sang. Ahead, at a curve, two Nilgai stood on the side of the trail. They heard me and looked and leaped into the brush.

The trail became bumpy and overgrown. In some areas, limbs hung across the trail. The wind blew hard along the bluffs. The air smelled of salt water and sage. The trail turned northwest, away from the bluffs, the mudflats and Stover Cove. At three miles I stepped on the narrow, old asphalt of Paisano Trail and followed it south. The 1955 USGS topo map shows three abandoned  firing ranges to the east of the old Paisano Trail with access roads to each one.

The more I walked, the narrower the trail became until limbs and brush blocked the trail. I pushed through it for a quarter mile and emerged from the heavy brush at a sign that read: Paisano Trail Exit.

I walked across a grassy field thick with cacti and thorny crucillo plants. I climbed over a gate and dropped onto newer asphalt, near Granjeno Trail, which I took back to the Visitor’s Center. The hiking route will be fantastic if it is cleared.