Bogue Chitto National Wildlife Refuge

This easy, out and back trail is a grassy road that travels 1.4 miles round-trip through the forest to an overlook of Holmes Bayou. This is a good place to look for warblers during migration. Spring can be wet; fall offers the best hiking conditions. Located off I-59 approximately 15 miles north of Slidell, LA. Take Exit 11/Pearl River Turnaround. Follow Honey Island Swamp Rd. on the west side of the highway approximately 4 west miles to the trailhead.

At the Pearl River Turnaround Fishing Access Site you'll find a disabled-accessible fishing pier, a picnic pavilion, and this short boardwalk trail that winds through a bottomland forest and skirts the edge of a fishing pond. Look for birds, turtles, and alligators. Whistling ducks are often seen nesting in boxes along the shoreline, and some years there is a rookery of egrets that nests on a island in the pond. This site may be flooded in late May and early June. The Jim Schmidt Interpretive Boardwalk is located at the Pearl River Turnaround fishing access site, off LA I-59 approximately 15 miles north of Slidell, LA. Take Exit 11/Pearl River Turnaround and follow the highway frontage road on the east side south to the Bogue Chitto Refuge fishing pond entrance.