Sulphur is the working front door of Louisiana's Cajun coast, a refinery and chemical town in Calcasieu Parish a few minutes from Lake Charles. It may not look like the start of a nature trail, and that is part of the point. The industrial flares and stacks give way, a short ride south, to marsh, bayou, and open Gulf, and the contrast is the story of this corner of Louisiana.
The town takes its name from the sulphur deposits found deep underground in the late nineteenth century. The mineral was too deep and too hot to mine in the usual way, and the engineer Herman Frasch devised a method of pumping superheated water down to melt it and bringing it up as liquid. That innovation made Louisiana a major source of sulphur for decades. The town still feels like a place built by industry, with plain roads and practical buildings, and it deserves a little respect for that.
For a rider, Sulphur is a practical stop, and a good one. This is the last place with a full range of services before the Creole Nature Trail heads south into the marsh. Fill the tank, buy water, and eat something solid, because the villages farther on are small and sometimes thin on offerings. A bowl of gumbo or a plate of boudin, the spicy rice sausage that Cajun country takes very seriously, is easy to find around here. The nearby town of Carlyss is smaller, and Lake Charles is the larger city to the east, with everything a traveller could want.
South of town, the riding changes completely. The land flattens, the road runs dead straight for long stretches, and the sky grows large. Wind off the Gulf can push a bike around, especially on exposed causeways and bridges, and summer brings heat, humidity, and sudden storms. Mosquitoes in the marsh are a fact of life, so keep a visor closed when you stop. The best seasons are spring and autumn, when migrating birds crowd the wetlands, and winter days can be clear and mild. Hurricanes are the great risk of late summer, and in recent years they have reshaped this coast more than once.