I just got back from a week of camping across the Hill Country and although weather wise it could have been nicer, it was still a great time.
We got out to Garner SP Sunday night, we didn't get to do much that night, but try and sleep through the pretty rough storms that came through very early in the morning. It rained most morning and cleared the park out, but we toughed it out until a little before lunch and it cleared up. My friends and I were able to do just about all the trails at the park except go down a few routes, although the wet ground mad the inclines a little more treacherous everything was awesome because the sun came out and stayed out the rest of the day. It was a little cool by the time we were done hiking to go swimming but we still walked around the river a bit and put our feet in it. We hung out around the campfire not really expecting more storms, but out of nowhere a storm with lots of rain and high winds came up on us so we turned in a little early.
The people I was with woke up to a water puddle in their tent for the second night in a row, so we opted on going to a store to get them a new tent. We had planned on going to Lost Maples, but due to its distance from civilization we couldn't oblige so we headed to Kerrville to get a tent and check out the Kerrville-Schreiner City Park. KS CP was very inexpensive, $9 for overnight, and although they aren't run by
TPWD anymore they will still honor State Park Passes (in terms of Entrance Fees) for Overnight Camping. The park had about 5-7 miles of trails according to the ranger we talked to, but after doing them that afternoon that seemed like a very generous estimate that you could possibly come up with doing several trail paths more then once. The trails weren't bad, but they seemed nothing out of the ordinary you would find in the Hill Country.
From Kerrville we headed to Enchanted Rock, which is one of my personal favorites. We got there on Wednesday and after waiting for a school group camping trip to clear out we got to share the entire park with 1 or 2 other groups, we had the campsites near the Summit Trail all to ourselves. Although we didn't get up the Little Rock we did all the trails, went up the Summit, checked out the Cave, and did a little exploring of our own. It was a great time, peaceful night, and even more fuel to my personal stance of E-Rock never getting old on me. Once we woke up to a small sprinkle, but that quickly cleared up.
Thursday we set out for Pedernales SP with no idea we would have to brave the elements we were going to. I have no quarrels with Pedernales SP, but $20 for camping there seems so steep to me, I am not sure why it is so high. Luckily we were starving by the time we got there, and decided to only setup our tents and leave the rest of our gear in the car. After lunch we forewent putting our stuff in the tents to have more time for hiking the falls, swimming, and messing around in the park. It was sunny and warm for the few hours we spent swimming, and right as we were getting across the falls just after leaving one of our friends to sunbath at the shore of the river it started to thunder. We decided it would be best to go back just in case, sure enough when we got in the car and headed to the swimming area we saw black skies, bolts of lightning, and then it was a down pore. We hung out for a bit waiting for it to pass us by, and eventually the wind died down and it went from poring to sprinkling and a bit of sun. Knowing we couldn't cook with the grill the way it was and the additional threat of weather we headed back to town for a meal. As soon as we got out of the park it was a light show, tons of lightning and dangerously close (at one point we actually thought it hit a try right off the road from us). It pored the whole time we drove to eat, ate, and drove back. Knowing that the Pedernales was very suseptible to Flash Flooding, that we would have to deal with getting our gear soaking wet to get it in our tents, and the lightning that seemed to be over us the whole time we took the tents down as fast as we could and got out of there. Once we got back to my house we checked out the TV and right as we went to one of the main channels there was a weather break saying there was a potential for serious flooding along the Pedernales, and the radar showed what looked like a storm front just sitting over the area from Johnson City to Fredericksburg.
All in all we had a great time and I have such a love for Garner and Enchanted Rock. After seeing the roads to and from Lost Maples I am determined to get out there this summer sometime, these roads aren't Texas it has to be New Mexico or Colorado. Wish the weather would have been better, but how can you even get the idea of a bad time if you are outdoors somewhere beautiful. Only thing is I wish we could have seen some more wildlife.
We're already thinking Round 2, East of 35 next week to get more in before work and school starts back up in two weeks.
Linear Mode
