SAND SPRINGS—Less than an hour after sunup on a recent Saturday two gray-haired hikers, one with his younger son, worked their way between ancient rock formations and centuries-old trees with the excitement of school kids on a field trip.

“We’re regulars out here at Keystone,” said Steve Flores of Owasso. “We do all the trails around here, really, Turkey Mountain, Redbud, but this is the one we’ve been waiting for, this looks great!”

Flores, his adult son Orion and friend Paul Dozier were among the first to hit Oklahoma’s newest ‘primitive’ hiking trail at the Keystone Ancient Forest near Sand Springs, shortly after the 3.55-mile Falls Trail loop opened recently.

With the new trail, a new full-time manager dedicated to the park, longer hours, and a new $1 million visitors center, the City of Sand Springs is making the Keystone Ancient Forest experience all new again.

More than one visitor that weekend described the visit as one of the best trail offerings available in eastern Oklahoma, one said it might be the best in the state, another said the area reminded him more of his native Upstate New York than anything he’s seen in Oklahoma.

“We started laying out the trail in December and it’s been about eight weeks building it. We were out here at least once a week most weeks, sometimes twice,” said Sand Springs Parks Director Jeff Edwards. “It was almost all built with hand tools, loppers, shovels and a little bit of chainsaw work.”

Parks staff finished things off using about four days over about the last two weeks, he said. Along with marking and erecting signage they used backpack leaf blowers to clear the trails down to smooth dirt, and to create a hard-to-miss route.

Edwards spent Saturday morning hiking the trail with staff and volunteers who worked on the trail and taking feedback from hikers. None seemed to have a complaint, other than a few who wished the weather was wetter and said they planned to come back when the water falls flowed fully.

“It’s looking good and we’re ready for more people,” Edwards said.

The 1,360 acre preserve with its 300-year-old oaks and sturdy 500-year-old red cedars is a precious remnant of the ancient crosstimbers region that once covered tens of thousands of acres across Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas and the added offerings are designed to share the forest with more visitors, he said. Gates now are open to the area 7 a.m.-2 p.m. Thursdays and 7 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday-Sunday, well more than twice as many hours as before.

Adjacent to an ample parking area, the new rock-faced 2,000-square-foot Irv and Sharna Frank Visitors Center rises from a hillside and stands tall as the surrounding forest. A lower level with a back entrance provides storage for city maintenance equipment and tools. The upper level for visitors is windowed floor to ceiling to offer a sweeping view of the woods and trailheads outside. Indoor restrooms and a water fountain where hikers can quench their thirst or refill a water jug are additions longtime visitors are especially happy to see.

The ribbon cutting recognized the Sharna and Irvin Frank Family Foundation and other private donors.

The visitors’ center is the trailhead focal point with maps of the area and it’s the spot where all visitors sign in and can talk to the volunteer trail guides who are available all hours that the center is open.

The area offers 12 miles of well-marked and groomed trails with areas suitable for disabled hikers, older walkers, families with children, or the truly adventurous.

Falls Trial takes hikers on a winding, up-and-down route that loops past fascinating rock formations and across two waterfalls in the headwaters of Brush Creek, a tributary of Keystone Lake.

“It’s like a different world down in there,” said Thomas Forbes, the new park manager. “A lot of people never have a chance to see a landscape like that.”

Edwards said he and Operations Manager Joe Medlin did much of the scouting and trail routing.

“We went through a planning process several years ago. We knew of the waterfall and that we wanted to put a trail in that area,” Edwards said. “Joe and I mapped it out and established points of interest and created the path.”

Posted trail signs mark every tenth mile and note when the trail ahead is “difficult” or “very difficult” but the removed leaves truly leave a path that looks like a cleared sidewalk in areas.

The first quarter mile or so and the last quarter or so are relatively easy walking, but the center portion of the trail drops into the headwaters of the Brush Creek drainage, where giant cedars seem to grow out of bare rock and the trail edges along steep bluffs and two waterfalls rush—when water levels are up.

It is not a path for those unsteady on their feet or faint of heart.

Several climbs and descents require careful footing, good balance and good hiking shoes.

“It’s very rocky, there are steep inclines and some 30-foot cliff drop-offs,” Edwards said. “We hiked it every week for the past eight weeks and it’s still a workout on your legs.”

Standing above the falls Saturday, Marla McMahon, a 38-year resident of the area and one of the original trail guides to volunteer at the Forest in 2007, appreciated the view.

“When we first started, in a couple years we had a day with 120 people signed in and we thought, ‘we’ll never see that again,’ and a couple years later we had close to 300 and we thought that was a record,” she said. “A couple weeks ago we had 700 in one day. Now we have this, and this is the piece we were missing. This is a bona fide tough trail.”