TEXAS
Guadalupe River State Park
I didn’t have high hopes about the hiking in Guadalupe River State Park. I read online that it was mostly a place where you might swim or kayak. After looking at the trail map and seeing a 3.1 mile hike, I decided it was worth it to at least check out.
This is roughly 1.5 - 2 hours driving from Austin which, for Texas, is decently close. The weather lately has been pretty dry so the river was a little low. This is the trail map. We started at the parking lot closest to the river and walked along the river where they have picnic tables.
This was a pretty standard but nice view of the river.
We followed the Cedar Sage Trail to the River Overlook Trail to look down on the river from a short bluff. This would’ve been cooler if the river had been higher or had there been less brush.
This trail connected to the figure-8 shaped loop, Barred Owl to Painted Bunting Trail to Live Oak Trail. This whole loop comes in at 4.5 miles. While Painted Bunting got a little repetitive with the prairie views, it wasn’t actually that bad. There was some controlled fire scorch marks that broke up the landscape
Lots of animal prints on the trail, which we were pretty sure were deer and wild cats!
While by elevation gain standards the trail was pretty mild, it went from rocky to gravely to dirt, through prairies, woods and river bluffs. So a decent amount of variety. There was this stony field towards the end that was nifty.
Tim’s Fitbit clocked us at 6 miles on the dot as we exited the trail and opened the car doors which was the perfect length.
We found a Thai place about twenty minutes away and got lunch there. I got Neum with chicken and almond bubble tea and it was delicious. I just looked up the name and realized this is a small chain around San Antonio / New Braunfels.