Exploring Beavers Bend State Park for Our 15th Annual Father/Daughter Hiking Trip

In 2008, my dad took me to the Southwest for a hiking trip for my spring break of my senior year. We both thought it would likely be a one-time thing, but here we are 15 years later still taking an annual hike ranging from a day trip to a 3-week road trip to Alaska. They’ve evolved over the years as I’ve gone through college, moved out of state, moved back, gotten married and now have 2 kids of my own. But we still carve out time to take one of these amazing father/daughter hiking trips each year! This year, our destination was Beavers Bend State Park in Oklahoma!

Quick Info About Beavers Bend State Park

Brief Description – Beavers Bend State Park sits alongside the dammed up section of Mountain Fork River which creates Broken Bow Lake, which is surrounded by forested areas.
Popular Activities at Beavers Bend – Hiking, biking, boating and fishing.
Nearby Towns – Hochatown and Broken Bow. Hochatown is closest, but Broken Bow has bigger stores and more restaurants.

Hikes We Did in Beavers Bend State Park

My dad had a torn achilles when we were on our trip, so we did far fewer hikes than normal on this year’s father/daughter hiking trip. But he was still a total rockstar and we managed to do a few cool hikes! (When he went to his follow-up the doctor said he’d never seen a boot come back like my dad’s. My dad also had it in Yosemite, so it was in rough shape. Haha!)

I have a couple of complaints I have for the park. One, is the lack of blazes or signage in certain sections, which is why you’ll see “attempted” under one of our hikes below. Secondly, you have to pay for parking – you can “do it from an app” but many of those spots don’t have cell service – or you can pay at the visitor’s center, which is wildly inconvenient. If you stay in the lodge, though, you don’t need to pay for parking.

FRIENDS TRAIL – This was my favorite trail of the trip. We didn’t do much research on this trail, but had just seen that the trail was the top rated on AllTrails. This was our last hike of the trip, so, with little knowledge we set out on this hike. Guys, we truly saved the best for last. Not only was it well-blazed but it was stunning. We started the loop to the right, and that’s the way I would recommend going. The trail led us up a hill, through some forested areas. There’s this section of pines that is so beautiful and starts to lead downhill and suddenly we heard the river rushing.

Once we made our way down to the river, there’s a single bench that looks over the water, and it’s the perfect place to sit because not only is it overlooking the river, but it’s overlooking a section of falls as well! Across the river, there are rugged rocks jutting out of the river where you can see people sunbathing or even fishing. My dad and I sat there, enjoying the view, until the next round of hikers came upon us, so we moved on to share the joy of this spot. We continued on down and hiked to the edge of the river and out onto some rocks that are out in the river. It’s a really scenic and special spot. From here, the trail continues along the river for a bit before circling back into the woods to meet up with the start of the trail.

CEDAR BLUFF OVERLOOK – This was my second favorite hike of our trip. This trail took us immediately uphill toward the beautiful overlook. It’s very straightforward and led to a first section that has a slightly obscured view of the overlook that’s still worth taking a look at. Then, we continued on, to a more obvious overlook with a bench bolted to the top of the overlook. We sat up there for several minutes, we listened to the water flow and saw blue herons gracefully take off from the swamp-like tree grove at the edge of the river. This trail is super short, but you can make a loop out of it to get a little extra mileage in.

From the overlook, we went down the hill through the woods. It was a beautiful trail in the woods surrounded by bright green leaves! It looped back around until it climbed up a hill and from there, we made it back to our car. It was a simple, short – even with the extra mileage – but beautiful hike.

WE ATTEMPTED LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN LOOP – As I mentioned above, the trails in this park weren’t always clearly blazed, and that was definitely true for the Lookout Mountain Loop. If this has a mountain with a lookout, we never made it to it. The trails intersected, but all without blazes. So, we just kind-of put a few loops together and we were finally dumped out at a paved road. Unfortunately, though, we weren’t positive where we were and all the people we ran into were on completely different trails from the one we started. hHaha. We eventually made it back to our car, though, and it was a nice walk in the woods. So, there’s that.

CEDAR CREEK FALLS – This trail is technically not inside Beavers Bend State Park, but it sits just outside of it. It’s a nice tree-covered hike, but the fall is definitely a wet-weather waterfall, so it wasn’t flowing. It was a great stretch of the legs outside and was easy, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to do it if there hadn’t been rain.

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Where We Stayed

We stayed at the Beavers Bend State Park Lodge. I’m really glad we did because it’s centrally located near all the different trails, and town isn’t too far away either. Also, you don’t have to pay for parking along any of the trials with a reservation here. Also, they provide a continental breakfast, which wasn’t anything fancy, but at least it’s included and the coffee is really good.

The best part of all, though, is the fact that you can catch some truly stunning sunrises. We got up for sunrise both days and sat out on their giant A-frame deck while we had our coffee. It’s a great way to start a day of adventure and hiking!

My Must-Do in Hochatown

Beavers Bend Brewery: If you’re a fan of craft beer don’t miss this brewery. They had a delicious Strawberry Blonde Ale and a Jalapeño Ale that the blended together for me and holy cow! It was so delicious – perfectly sweet and spicy. Also, the hot dog food truck that sits outside of the brewery, The Wienery 10/10 has the best hot dog I’ve ever had. I built my own with chili, french fried onions and white cheddar cheese and wowza! I would make the drive just to eat this hot dog again.

We definitely left a lot undiscovered in Beavers Bend State Park, and I would definitely try to go back in the spring when waterfalls would be flowing more and temps were even cooler, but I definitely would go back, even if it isn’t at the top of my list, I do love that we have so many cool places within driving distance between us.

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