The Bushwhacker's Guide to Exploring Dallas

Definitely Out There

Joppa Preserve: The Serengeti

Score: 10 (Civilized 4, Wild 10, Skeezy 4)

Named for one of the state's longest enduring Freedman's Towns (pronounced "Joppy" by the old guard), Joppa Preserve offers miles and miles of paved walking and bike trail looping around small lakes and ponds. During migratory season, it's crazy with birds, like a scene from Wild Planet. If you're on a bike, your biggest hazard may be people stopping to take pictures. Off the paved trails, Joppa Preserve is wild — an entryway into the Great Trinity Forest and who knows what.

Coordinates: N32 42.375 W96 44.275. Take I-45 for 5.6 miles south from downtown to the Loop 12/Ledbetter/Great Trinity Forest Boulevard exit. Go left (east) on Great Trinity Forest about 0.9 mile. You will see signs on the right-hand service drive saying "Dead End" and "No Outlet." That's your welcome. Turn onto the service road. You have to keep going on the service road past where you think you can go. You will see a neat new parking lot on your right with a trail entrance. You can also park just ahead under the bridge at the Loop 12 Boat Ramp.

Definitely Out There

California Crossing Bike Trail: Whack a Mole, and Guess Who's the Mole

Score: 8 (Civilized 4, Wild 7, Skeezy 3)

Trail around old gravel borrow pits, now wild ponds and lakes, on nice trails improved and used by bikers. Walk against traffic, listen hard around blind corners, don't even think about it on a Saturday. Otherwise, these are very nice trails not terribly far from downtown.

Coordinates: N32 51.995 W96 55.367. Take U.S. Highway 114 John Carpenter Freeway toward the airport about 10 miles from downtown, exit at Riverside Drive, turn right, go 0.8 mile to California Crossing Road, turn right again. Two tenths of a mile ahead, California Crossing Park will be on your left. But don't stop there. Go another 300 feet and turn into a parking lot on your right with a big pond on your left.

Trinity River Greenbelt: Deep City Wilderness

Score: 7 (Civilized 0, Wild 10, Skeezy 3)

This area is almost invisible from a fast-moving car on the surrounding highways, and the highways will disappear and go silent the moment you enter this forgotten forest in the heart of the city. Motorized vehicles are illegal. It takes some walking and maybe a little getting lost to find this place.

Coordinates: N32 50.465 W96 52.224. Take I-35E north from downtown to Regal Row, exit right a short hop to Harry Hines Boulevard, turn left, go 0.4 mile. Entrance to Greenbelt is on your left. Just beyond it on the right is Strokers Motorcycles.

You are looking for a dirt parking lot with a sign that says "Reserved Area, NO Unauthorized Entry." That's where you'll enter. Go left of the metal fenced area onto a dirt track. Ahead will be a locked gate. Park there.

You need to walk around the gate (it's city land, open to walkers), go up and over the levee, then north along I-35E to a bridge that will allow you to cross under. Right there you are at the entrance to a vast system of informal trails along the Trinity River.

Gateway Trail: Dallas' Alps

Score: 9 (Civilized 5, Wild 10, Skeezy 6)

Gateway Trail is a loose nomenclature for a series of trails up, down and along the southern White Rock Escarpment in southeast Dallas. You can find yourself on steep inclines and steep descents, wrapped in trees and birdsong, in deep-woods ravines where you could imagine you're hiking somewhere outside of Santa Fe.

Much of this area has never been developed. It's not unusual to find Indian artifacts and wild orchids out here, not to mention plentiful wildlife.

The skeezy score is awarded here because you can also happen upon groups of young dope smokers and occasionally even more sketchy characters, especially where the trails are still close to nearby neighborhoods.

This is a vast area. If you ever do manage to get beyond the DART tracks, you can get seriously lost out there. You can also see some very serious nature, from gators to bobcat.

Baseball diamond entrance. Coordinates: N32 45.434 W96 42.219. Take I-30 east to Jim Miller Road, go south two and half miles; 800 feet beyond Scyene Road look for the Gateway Park baseball diamond and parking on your right. To the right of the diamond, look for a green electrical box on the ground, about three feet high, with wooden bollards just to the right of it. That's the trail entrance.

Gateway Renda Street entrance. Coordinates: N32 45.674 W96 42.270. Take Scyene west from Jim Miller 0.2 mile, turn left or south on Renda Street. Go 0.1 mile to where the street ends at Lacywood Lane. There is a locked and closed parking lot on your right. You will have to park on the shoulder of Renda or Lacywood.

Out beyond the parking lot is a trailhead sign. This trail will take you down to the bottoms, but eventually you will be walled off by a fenced DART right-of-way. If you walk northwest along the tracks you will come to a weird intersection to nowhere, where you can cross. Beyond this point, you are in the really big land, the area where you can get lost. Tell us if you find Big Foot.