Kisatchie National Forest: Longleaf Vista

The forest takes its name from the Kichai, a Caddoan people who, the Forest Service says, called themselves Kitsatchie. Before the forest, the land was logged. Virgin yellow pine once covered much of Louisiana, the Gulf Lumber Company cut its last timber in 1927, and in 1930 the Secretary of Agriculture proclaimed Kisatchie a national forest. Caroline Dormon, born in 1888 at Briarwood in Natchitoches Parish and the first woman to join the Society of American Foresters as an associate member, lobbied state leaders and the Forest Service for years to bring it about. The forest now covers more than 600,000 acres.

Longleaf Vista is a day-use area on a ridge reached from Interstate 49 at the Derry exit, then south on Highway 119 and west on Forest Highway 59, the 17-mile Longleaf Trail Scenic Byway. From a stone gazebo you look over the Kisatchie Hills Wilderness, about 8,700 acres of steep, rugged ground that surrounds the site on three sides and that locals call the Little Grand Canyon. A 1.5-mile interpretive loop passes meadows, bottomland hardwoods, high mesas and creeks.

The area has picnic tables, a pavilion, flush restrooms and drinking water. It is free and open 24 hours, as listed by the Forest Service in 2026.