I had a nostalgic thought today of spending most of my middle school and high school afternoons and weekends shredding the trails at Devil’s Den. That place was amazing in the early ‘90s. You never knew who you were going to meet out there. Paintball groups, Spaniard trials riders, drunk hillbillies on quads, rich dudes in D90s, satanist goth kids standing in prayer circles, and HSLD guys on fresh CR250s. It was pure harmony of man.

I retraced our old trails and saw that there’s now a public funded bike path through it, and after a bit more reading, it’s now a MTB trail. I guess all good things come to an end, but still, it makes me sad.

Pic I found of what I think was the main bowl with the infamous double on the right.

I do remember being escorted out of the area back when I was in High school by SAPD. We used to 4wheel back in that spot over near Ingram mall correct ?

I can remember lots of places like that. We had a place similar to that on the northeast side of SA called Robard's, it is all subdivisions now. I can also remember when the old mill and chute in the middle of New Braunfels (used to call it Stinky's) was a city park and free. Or the cliffs by the dam at Canyon Lake when they were North Park and open to the public. That was when both North Park and Comal Park were free. I can also remember the original Shlitterbahn when it was $47 for a season.

OP, is the Devil's Den area you refer to the place off Leon Creek now called the Leon Creek Greenway?...or somewhere else?  As someone else pointed out, San Antonio had lots of off the beaten path places for kids to explore, ride motorcycles, and do whatever.  I was born and raised there until college.  I got bit by the motorcycle bug in a most unusual way as a kid in the 60's in SA...on a Sears Allstate scooter...LOL!

Friend of mine had a paper route, so those Vespa's, Allstates, and other small wheeled scooters were ideal for the big, newspaper holders to drape over the bulged engine covers without getting tangled in the rear wheel or drive train...plus they didn't require constant clutching.  We would go out to the Salado Creek area off W.W. White and Military Drive and ride miles of trails...2-up.  My buddy had an older brother who had some kind of brand new, bright yellow, Sears, 350cc single motorcycle that my friend sneaked away one day, and we rode that 2-up on those Salado trails...it might have been made by Benelli...not sure.  His brother beat the crap out of him for that...LOL!

I was hooked...had to have a motorcycle.  I had worked after school at Handy-Andy grocery store there at W.W. White and Rigsby since I was 14, so I had saved some money.  My folks would no let me buy a motorcycle.  I left home at 17 and within a year I had a motorcycle.  My long path down the evil road of street and dirt bikes continues to this day.  Worked part time here in Abilene for many years at a local motorcycle dealership outside of my regular career to pay for all my bad habits.  I raced the state's enduro circuit for decades and traveled all over the country on street bikes.  

I still ride dirt and street bikes on a regular basis, and I have the Salado trails and a Sears Allstate scooter to thank for it...in a weird way.  Thanks OP for bringing up SA trail memories down memory lane.

Yes, it’s the Leon Creek area. We used to access it from a ditch running from Misty Oaks, but you could also get in from that apartment complex off of Timber Hill, or from the bridge at Grissom and Timber Hill.

It had everything. Single track, whoop sections, awesome banked corners, hills, and a ton of dry river bed and stepped limestone. You could get run out by SAPD if you stayed too close to Ingram Mall, but they couldn’t get in to the heart f Devils Den, which was where all the technical parts were.



From DD, we would ride all the way out to UTSA. You could follow the creek under Grissom and come out at Bandera. If you kept going, you would come out in OP Schnabel park and a golf course. Between Grissom and Bandera was a sweet sand pit.

It’s amazing the round trips we would take on 2-stroke 125s. We would sometimes carry a jug of fuel in a backpack.