Black Creek National Hiking Trail #205

Dogs Unknown

There is the Black Creek Canoe Rental shop in Brooklyn. You can set up a shuttle with them if you call in advance. They were quite helpful and flexible the first time I played in this area.

You can also kayak, bike, or do a combo as a solo shuttle. I set up a tent at Fairley landing (the southern terminus), was going to drop off my bike at Moody's, kayak down to Moodys and bike down to Fairley, and then run back to my vehicle the next day. If I do this again, I think I'll do a two day kayaking trip, bringing all my gear with me, and run back to my vehicle day three. There are all kinds of options, including shorter stretches.

Have fun!

See the "Need to Know" section. Additionally, if looking to do this in a day, there are a a bunch of places to stash supplies (make sure to pick up what remains, after the run) along the way. I stashed at two places (I was going south to north). The first was the parking area at the Rt 29 crossing. The other was a stretch of trail along a dirt road about 9-10 miles from the Big Creek. There are enough road crossings or sections that you can really do a pick-your-own adventure.

The trail, a National Recreation Trail, as mapped here starts at the Big Creek Landing site, just to the west of Brooklyn and about 30 minutes south of Hattiesburg.

For the first 13 miles, the trail will not feel too remote. It frequently crosses roads, many of the forestry roads. This lasts until the trail reaches the point where it is across the river from Moody's landing. The trail is decently blazed, but not always easy to follow. It is highly recommended to have access to the map on your phone or GPS device for the inevitably time you get off trail (the trail will disappear at times along with the blazes).

After Moody's, it is a bit more of the same. There will be some infrequently used singletrack as well as some short road sections.

There are two parts of this trail that stand out the most; what I will call "The Crux" and the Wilderness area.

The crux comes a couple/few miles past Moody's. The trail can be tricky to follow but generally you can figure it out. However, around mile 16 it just disappears. There are indications of where there once was a trail and on the map the trail has it going along the river, but it is simply impossible to follow with the briars, blackberries, bushes, and whatever else. the trail forms a horseshoe shape here (or at least according to the map). However, you'll need to cut across the bottom part of the horseshoe. You can manage to stay on higher ground and should be able to stay dry. It is maybe a quarter of a mile (probably not even that) straight across. Don't even try to follow the horseshoe shape around (unless they've done a lot of maintenance since I was there).

Once past the crux, the trail can still be hard to follow but not as bad. You can usually figure it out quickly between the visuals and the GPS. You'll eventually hit an old dirt road and will follow that to a parking area about .5 miles south of Janice Landing. This is a good place to have water and other goodies stashed, if you are doing this in a day.

Once you cross the road you'll enter the Black Creek Wilderness area. This is the best part of the trail. You'll feel pretty remote and its a pretty stretch, though it can also be hard to follow at times. Enjoy this stretch!

You'll pop out of the wilderness and will cross a dirt road. Just follow the trail back from there. It won't be as pretty but there are still some nice stretches, especially the few miles after the WA.