Part of the East Coast Greenway, a 3,000 mile long system of trails connecting Maine to Florida, runs through the park.

While early farming efforts were successful, poor cultivation practices and one-crop production led to depletion and erosion of the soil.

In 1934, under the Resettlement Administration, federal and state agencies united to buy 5,000 acres (20 km2) of this submarginal land to develop a recreation area.

Crabtree Creek Recreational Demonstration Area was renamed a few years later after former Governor William Bradley Umstead because of his conservation efforts.

[5] Umstead is bordered by Raleigh-Durham International Airport on the west, Interstate 40 on the south, US 70 on the north, and by the western outskirts of Raleigh on the east.

The main bridle and bike trail is Reedy Creek Road, which is open to traffic in western Raleigh (connecting the North Carolina Museum of Art to the park entrance), closed except to rangers' vehicles as it crosses the park from east to west (a distance of 3.5 miles), and then heads south into Cary where it becomes open to traffic again.

[6] The topography is hilly, and it has several artificial lakes (which are very common in Wake County, partially due to a flood control plan implemented over the last half-century).

Is a 61-acre (0.25 km2) National Natural Landmark located inside the park, which protects a mixed mesophytic forest and maturing stands of beech trees.