Mcgee Creek Natural Scenic Recreation Area, Oklahoma, United States

5.0 (1 review) Spent Ranking #4 in Atoka Hiking Trails

Who says you can't have an awesome long day-hike in Oklahoma?

The McGee Creek Natural Scenic Recreation Area is a wilderness area adjacent to and northeast of the McGee Creek State Park. It has a few hiking trails and is great for hiking and bird watching. To get to the parking lot, head East on OK-3 from Atoka towards Antlers. Drive past the signs for the state park and turn North on Centerpoint Road. Follow Centerpoint for about 11 miles past the ranger station until you arrive at the parking lot. There are a couple of trails leaving from the parking lot including a relatively short loop trail (about 1 mile) called the Carnesaw Nature Trail, as well as a few longer options. We opted for a longer trail and had quite an adventure as shown below. The Little Bugaboo, South rim, North Rim, and Wildcat Loop is listed at about 11 miles and has quite a bit of up and down. It's a very nice trail...very diverse scenery, some ups and downs, lots of tree cover for most of the route, but also some large grassy areas with tall grass. We hiked the route counterclockwise...and in hindsight, I would recommend this direction. Much of the trail was somewhat overgrown,and there was some poison ivy, but the trail was pretty well marked with big yellow signs at most of the junctions and markings on the trees if you look for them. There are also some really big cairns to help you through the grassy areas. I definitely recommend this trail. It's one of the nicer trails in Oklahoma. A couple of important points:.First, we measured the route using GPS and it is only about 9 miles (including the Carnasaw Nature Trail). Second definitely wear long pants as the tall grass will give your legs a beating. Third, be careful on the Wildcat Trail as about 1.5 miles after turning off of the North Rim Trail, there are no signs indicating where the trail turns south to go through the grassy areas. If you're not careful, you might end up following one of the offshoot trails down to the lake. A trail map is very helpful.
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