Wake County’s newest park was designed for equestrians, but horses are optional
The trails at Sandy Pines Preserve, Wake County’s newest park, were designed for horses and their riders.
They’re topped with compact sand that’s easy on a horse’s hooves, and in many places they are wide enough to ride two horses side-by-side. Signs and trail maps are at rider height, and the parking lot was sized for trucks and SUVs pulling horse trailers.
But since Sandy Pines opened this fall, the 6.5 miles of trails that wind through loblolly pine forests and along the edges of meadows have attracted plenty of two-legged creatures as well.
“We actually ended up expanding some of the car parking,” says Deborah Fowler, Wake County’s open space manager. “Because it’s also been a popular destination for hikers, too, which is great.”
At 563 acres, Sandy Pines Preserve is the largest property owned by the county parks, recreation and open space department. It’s one of three nature preserves the county has opened in eastern Wake County in recent years, using money from bonds voters authorized starting in 2000.
The first was Robertson Millpond Preserve, 85 acres upstream of a nearly 200-year-old dam on Buffalo Creek that created a blackwater swamp. Since it opened in 2015, the preserve has become popular with kayakers who paddle among the county’s only known population of bald cypress trees.
The Turnipseed Nature Preserve opened two years later, with hiking trails through 265 acres of wetlands, forests and meadows.
County parks planners decided the Sandy Pines Preserve was a good place for horseback riding. That’s in part because of its large size and the extensive network of tractor roads through the former farm that had been in the Marriott and Procter families for more than 200 years.
The county consulted the N.C. Horse Council on turning those roads into trails, paying close attention to not only the soft surface but also good drainage, to try to keep them from becoming muddy.
“We’ve heard many times that the equestrian community would like more places to ride in Wake County,” Chris Snow, the county’s parks, recreation and open space director, said in a statement when the park opened in October. “And we’re excited that Sandy Pines Preserve can meet that need.”
Horses and humans share the trails
The trails are open to hikers and dogs on leashes, but on the Saturday morning before Christmas, people with horse trailers far outnumbered those without. Among them were Lisa and Kenneth Bedford and their granddaughter Summer, who drove in from Goldsboro with their horses Azzy, Comanche and Dixie.
The Bedfords learned about the park through word of mouth and were making their second visit. They like the scenery and that the trails are soft and easy on their horses’ hooves. Lisa Bedford said she wishes there were restrooms.
“Other than that, it’s nice and beautiful,” she said. “We’ll be back.”
The fields and meadows at Sandy Pines were farmed until recently. The county plans to keep them open, with mowing and controlled fires, and plant native grasses and flowers, such as milkweed, echinacea, black-eyed Susan and bee balm, to attract butterflies and other pollinators, Fowler said.
The park, at 7201 Doc Procter Road, is open only on weekends, 8 a.m. to sunset, from September through March, and will be closed Christmas and New Year’s day. It’ll be open seven days a week from April 1 through the end of August.
All three of the county’s eastern Wake nature preserves are open only on weekends much of the year, because the county doesn’t have enough staff, Fowler said.
“We really, really hope that we can eventually get all of the preserves open seven days a week, just like our other parks,” she said. “We’ve just got to find the resources and the funding for that.”
