Neville

Last weekend I headed down to Hill Country State Natural area, a region covered in rolling hills, open plains and some heavily wooded areas.

I headed out Friday morning for the six hour drive south and hit the trailhead around three-thirty in the afternoon. As my luck would have it, there was a horse race of some sorts going on and the park was dominated by the prancing equines. I started out on the principal trail to the Wilderness backcountry area which flowed amongst the hills for about two and a half miles. The camp is a small bald spot or 'bowl' within surrounded by the hills and offered plenty of side trips to occupy the rest of the evening. Being it was a holiday weekend with temperatures in the seventies, I shared the campsite with two other hiking parties. Everyone pretty much kept to themselves and silence covered the area around eight o'clock. With a cresent moon a third away from setting I was able to enjoy a starry night before turning in around nine o'clock.

I arose early and while the other hikers proceeded to check out their surroundings I headed out to cover a loop around southwest of the campground and slowly make my way back to the trailhead. The trail climbed up and down the hilly countryside and offered me several nice vistas of the surrounding region. I took my time and covered the four and a half miles in about four hours before returning to the trailhead. I had planned to stick around that night and leave on Sunday, but I figured that the holiday traffic would be horrible at best so I headed back to Dallas around midday. Clouds had formed on Saturday but the temperatures stayed in the low seventies. Not a bad way to spend a holiday weekend.

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ploddinTod

Neville,

Now that you've been to both Hill Country SNA and Lost Maples, which do you prefer, taking into account water access, quality of primitive campsites and overall scenery along the trails?

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PloddinTod

Neville

I'd have to go with Lost Maples. It seems that Hill Country is more suited to horseback riding (I was dodging them all weekend) than hikers. The backcountry campsites were good in both, althought I do like the Wilderness camp area in Hill Country best 'cause you can have a fire.

As far as scenery is concerned, it's practically a tie between the two. Both offer some really neat - and different - scenery and they are the only two parks between Austin and San Antonio that I would consider revisting. The edge would go to Lost Maples during the Fall.

Water access? Hands down Lost Maples. There were times in Lost Maples that I could have easily thought that I was in the northeastern US with all the water that was around. The pools in Hill Country, while looking fine, were questionable to me with so many horses visiting them.

Bottom line, I would give a slight edge to Lost Maples. Overall I'd say it's probably the best place in central TX for an overnighter.

cfitz

I had a GREAT time at 'Hill Country'. My girlfriend and I drove 2 1/2 hours from Austin to hike this place (we were down from Dallas on Memorial Day weekend)..... we got there and the Park Ranger told us the trails were closed due to thunderstorms. He did draw us a small area where we could hike - like 1 1/2 miles worth! - imagine my displeasure.

So we hiked, and hiked some more........ missed a few signs, and ended up hiking over half of the trail system - we started at about 2:30 and finished around 8. It rained on us a decent amount which was just what the doctor ordered - we didn't care. The only people we encountered were another couple who were running the trail. They were in the restricted area too!. So that made us more comfortable. Other than that, we saw nobody - it was totally secluded and perfect! The trails weren't too steep, but some minor climbing was part of the deal. We saw a few deer and several rabbits....nothing too crazy.

Overall it was an excellent day getaway.