Shannon

Share you comments or questions about Palmetto State Park, located in Gonzales, Texas.

__________________
- Shannon Moore
Your Host @ WildTexas.com

Purchases in the Wild Texas Gear Shop support our continued operation. Thank you!

Unregistered

Beautiful Park... nice hikes... nice camp sites... too many bugs though.... c'mon... it's a swamp... even though we've camped there twice.....

Shannon

Unregistered,

Did you hear any owls during the evening hours? We've camped at Palmetto several times, and the owls never fail to disappoint. They're one of the highlights of our visits to the park, IMHO. (We've also heard them at other parks, but they tend to be much closer to our campsite at Palmetto and thus more impressive. )

Thanks for sharing your comments. I do concur on the bugs, although they're nothing like the population down on the coast!

__________________
- Shannon Moore
Your Host @ WildTexas.com

Purchases in the Wild Texas Gear Shop support our continued operation. Thank you!

Unregistered

If you want bugs go down to Sea Rim State Park by Port Arthur. The mosquitos were so thick we had to cover our mouths so we wouldn't suffocate on them. Inside our RV we couldn't keep them out. I don't know how they kept getting in, but they did. We ended up packing up and leaving at 4 in the morning. It was horrible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Repmac1

Great weather (lucky us), trees were budding and inch long caterpillars were eating the leaves as fast as they grew. Pillar dropings coated everything under the trees. Caterpillars dangling by silk thread were hanging off anything that had air under it. Kind of got use to the little guys, even when they would crawl up my shirt to the neckline or to the top of my socks, where they would encounter skin which became a barrier. From here they were stuck, giving a buggy tickling sensation until flicked off. My kids were running around the first day pointing out every one that they saw, kept them quit busy. The birds loved these little caterpillars. Sunrise brought hundreds of birds, mainly Robins, on patrol in the branches overhead, gorging themselves (and dropping, which also covered everything. I must have wiped off the table cloth a hundred times). This went on all day. I'd have to bet that in a couple of weeks there will be a plague of moths.
Only saw 4 mosquitos!!
Heard the Owls, though only in the late afternoon, not at night.
Lots of flowers. Spiderwort protruded through the carpet of green grasses throughout the park. Saw what looked to be onions almost in bloom.
While walking the trails along the San Marcos river you get a good feel for the power of the floods of last summer. This sandy river bottom really took a beating. Driftwood trees lay strewn on the overbank areas, large new sandbars, and riverbank that slumped into the river have shifted the trail. If you look at the slump zones you might be able to spot springs bubbling with sulphur gases near the base of each one. These are numerous and the kids had fun watching the bubbling and quaking sand. The trail across the San Marco river between the two camping areas is under water (still) so you must walk the road to get to the different trail areas.
Registered late so had to take the last of the 50amp sites. It's hard to believe that anyone would need to run air conditioners when the temperature wasn't much above 70 but that's just what the big motorhomes and 5th wheels were doing. Sunday 7am one guy was out with his leaf blower tidying up his site. Next time I'll plan ahead and stick my little pop up in the non electric sites.
Great kid play area with the tallest swings and slide in TX next to the oxbow lake where you can rent canoes and paddleboats.

audreyhtx1

We're heading to Palmetto State Park tomorrow. We have visited and hiked a little, but never camped there before. We hope to have close encounters with Barred Owls - their calls are so fantastic.

Audrey

audreyhtx1

We stayed there a couple of nights. It was really nice. We would have stayed there longer if we didn't have to be somewhere else.

Nice trailer loop. After the "Sunday stragglers" (i.e. folks who stay an hour or two after official checkout time) left we had the place almost all to ourselves. Very quiet and peaceful except for nature sounds. We didn't get to hear any Barred Owls though. Maybe next time.

The drive in was a bit scary for a "big rig" - the road into the trailer camping loop is way too narrow and winding with some blind curves, and I shudder to think what could happen if another rig had been coming towards us on the road. I think next time one of us will go ahead in the jeep and warn any traffic coming from the other side (or ask them to please wait). Also park road 14 coming in from 183 has lots of low overhanging branches - go slow.

We hiked most of the trails. Almost no mosquitos - it was a bit dry. On the Palmetto trail only the pond next to the water tower had water - several other ponds were dry. Lots of birds along the river trail - especially woodpeckers. A Red-shoulder Hawk hangs out near the oxbow lake. My husband found and photographed a Julia (Heliconia) butterfly along the trail near the trailer loop. This is a gorgeous orange tropical butterfly rarely seen in Central Texas but known to occur here.

Audrey

SunshineSnuz

Camped at Palmetto this past weekend and must say it was a very pleasant park.

We arrived Friday afternoon and got site #41 right by the lake. This is one of the larger sites with a 24x24 tent pad instead of the normal 16x16 (with the two tents we were setting up we didn't want to be right on top of each other). The site is large and well shaded with a little path down close to the river. (close enough to throw in a fishing line anyway). The minor flaws of this site are that it is a little to close to the road so you get some traffic noise when trucks go by, but that isn't too often to be annoying. Heck we had worse with the airplanes at Kerrville! Also the way the water faucet is set it drains right to the fire pit so makes it a little soggy over there. All in all though we were pleased.

After getting camp set up my husband's buddy and I decided to go hiking while husband and daughter stayed behind to finish up and fish, as we were unsure how the trails were going to be after the recent rains. Turns out trails weren't too bad but we took a much longer hike than expected. We walked along the short Palmetto Trail twice uneventfully except for the numerous spider webs that we somehow didn't manage to avoid. Then somehow found a 'backway' onto the hiking trail and followed that around. Trails are well maintained and the numerous plant and wildlife keep it interesting. We saw a few deer, tons of tracks, bunches of birds, frogs, lizards, spiders and two snakes. I somehow managed to walk within 2 feet of a water mocassin without getting bit. Lucky for me he was stretched out attempting to cross the trail instead of coiled... Managed to get a pretty good picture as well.

Went to bed Friday night listening to the frogs sing their chorus, thankful that we weren't any closer to the lake. LOL! Storm rolled through about 3am Saturday morning that had us a tad concerned that we were going to either fly away or be washed away. Tent pad was ideally located however it didn't drain quite as well as I would've hoped (but with as much rain that was dumped on us that night I can't complain too much). Got up about 6:30am as the storm was tapering down to a steady rain to see about getting bfast started but soon decided that everything was much to damp. Headed into Gonzales and found a little Mexican Restaurant off of 90 that had excellent refried beans!! Oh and the rest of the food wasn't bad either. (beware they leave the seeds in the jalepeno's!)

Rained stopped about 11ish so we were able to come back and get some fishing in...Not much luck from the peir so grabbed daughter's scooby fishing pole, rented a 3-person pedal boat ($6 per hour) and hit the lake. Got a decent size cat and a rather large something... yes this is 'the one that got away' story. LOL. All I can say it was large enough that poor scooby couldn't quite handle it.

Did some more exploring but never could find a decent place to fish on the river's bank (and the cross-over 'bridge' between the two sides of the camps was flooded and too strong flowing to have much luck.) Went back and found decent spot off of the Lake Trail between some trees and undergrowth but never did get the 'big one'. In fact the only 'big one' I got were the bug bites! Stupid me hadn't been bit all weekend so forgot to put any spray back on (especially at dusk). Sigh!

Fire Ban was lifted so we were able to enjoy a nice campfire and s'mores Saturday night. Like a moth to a flame we had two guys from a couple campsites over come and visit. (the rest of their group had already crashed, they were heading to Big Bend the next day) Sky threatened to open up on us again but it held and the clouds even parted enough to see the moon. Frogs again started their chorus but this time a couple of Owls and a pack of Coyotes joined them. It was some kind of symphony!

I was very happy with this park and will most likely visit again. There were some slight annoyances... the bathrooms were not kept clean (especially after the day-use people were done with it), only one set of showers (located by the trailer loop) , our site a little too close to the day-use folks, no easy access to the river (that we could find) and the other slight flaws previously mentioned. Benefits outweighed the bad though, besides it just being a cute little park, the sites were very shaded, the park hosts were super friendly and hospitable, the trails are nicely maintained, good playscape for the kiddo's and abundant wildlife (the ducks loved to hang out at our site).

On to plan the next adventure!!