Joppa Preserve - Dallas County Nature Preserve — Attraction in Dallas

I also posted this on All Trails: So, overall great trail. It is relatively flat with gentle grades, scenic, and shaded (the shade was great). HOWEVER I would not recommend anyone to go alone and especially not to go after dusk. My partner and I went yesterday (Sun 05-24) and encountered some "sketchy" activity. There was an unmarked white van that had accessed the trail near the exit/entrance at Locust Dr. that was not affiliated with the City or county. The bollards protecting that exit/entry were destroyed. Anyway... the situation gave us the creeps because it left and came back multiple times to the same location... We have alerted City of Dallas and the PD but they still have not gotten back to us. Also, we found large bullets and syringes with needles still intact in the parking lot. LOL other than all of this, it's nice for day time use, but please be vigilant...

The park seemed pretty basic - just a parking lot with some open fields, water access, and woods with a few picnic tables. If you want to do something here, you need to bring it with you as there is no playground or much else aside from the paved trail, but it did seem pretty well kept. I came to run along the trail, and it was pretty good. It was nice to be running in the "woods" on concrete. The downside is that due to some previous rain the trail had some standing water in it as well as some mud in different places. The trail was also slippery, to the point that I thought I had put on the wrong pair of shoes, but just seems to be the pavement. Overall a good place to jog or bike, but I wouldn't recommend doing sprints or riding a road bike with skinny tires, at least after a...

My friend and I went today for the first time. Early afternoon on a Saturday. The preserve is behind a very industrialized area that has an overall sketchy vibe. Nevertheless, I wanted to give it a try. Once I got to the parking lot in the back, I got this eerie vibe. Actually, I got the vibe as soon as I drove in. The trail was a concrete path between trees, we turned around at some point and went to another trail in Dallas where we felt a little more comfortable walking at. This is not somewhere you should be alone or at when it’s dark. We did not walk far enough to see the river but from the views we got it’s not worth the drive nor risk. There’s just something about all the trash, the pot holes and the sketchy cars in the parking lot that is not enticing...