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A few things in the vicinity of Austin / San Antonio
Submitted by Michael W. Wellman <mwellman@gmail.com> on 18/Nov/2016 in reply to Wow, thanks for all that, Mike! posted by Oci-One Kanubi on 16/Nov/2016
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If you're going to Pedernales (highly recommended), you're already within 60 miles of Enchanted Rock State Park. It's worth a visit, especially if you'd like to do some pink granite cave tourism -- there's few places it's easier to find a 1/4 mile long one-way cave.
https://therivardreport.com/inside-enchanted-rock-an-adventure-through-time/
Be advised that if it's been raining, the granite can be super slick. The cave entrance is near the top of the 400+ foot tall granite dome and the lowest exit is back near "ground level".
From Enchanted Rock, it's 60 miles north to the interesting Colorado Bend State Park. It's not as developed as many of the state parks but offers a variety of well-concealed wild caves, the travertine Gorman Falls, and a wide variety of relatively flat trails. It's an interesting place to somewhat get a sense of what the Upper Colorado River basin was like when Texas was settled. Historically this park is not crowded, in the 1990's I was there in the spring or 3 or 4 days at a time without seeing another person. If it's warm out, ask where the swimming holes are, they can be spectacularly beautiful (if sometimes well concealed).
South of those features is Guadalupe River State Park. It's above Canyon Lake (the source for the whitewater section of the Guadalupe River) and is a study in contrast from the drier areas away from the park. Settlers along the Guadalupe used to have the occasional alligator problem...depending upon where you are, it's weird to find one suddenly in an area characterized by cypress trees or stately oaks draped in Spanish moss.
See if you can get on a tour of the Honey Creek State Natural Area. But it's only open to visitation like once a week. :-(
If you want to meander West from Austin more slowly, Lost Maples State Park is interesting if you can catch the maples changing colors. It's a pleasant park when the maples aren't changing, but can be astonishingly crowded if the trees "go off".
A bit further away Kickapoo Cavern State Park and Devil's Sinkhole State Natural Area. When I was young and stupid, I helped map caves in both these areas (before they were parks). Now at Kickapoo you have to sign up for tours (Saturdays only). Kickapoo is famous for it's bat flights, but most of the bats winter in Mexico. But Kickapoo Cavern is spectacular with some of the largest features in Texas.
Devil's Sinkhole is also mostly about the bats who'd headed south for the winter. If you imagine what 3 million bats can do to a cave, you can imagine it wasn't fun to map. Nowadays you can't even get to the park without a special tour. But if you're there when the bats are in town, it's worth trying to catch one of the bat tours.
Next stop Devils River. If you've never checked out the Devils River, you absolutely have to do so. Fantastic travertine formations are abundant in the river (although maybe more upstream than where the park proper is). It used to be nearly impossible to run this river, but now they've access points defined at various spots and camp sites along the river so that you can not get shot at by irate private property holders (who under Spanish land grants explicitly own the riverbed so back in the day touching a rock was trespassing and could get you arrested).
It's out of the way of the rest of this stuff, but if you've the time and inclination, make a trip up to Caverns of Sonora. It is one of the most spectacularly beautiful caves in the world with some of the easiest to get to helictites that you'll find. Assuming that it's still in the shape that it was in the 1980's.
Texas is a big place, so if you're taking I-10 from San Antonio to Big Bend, Sonora basically is halfway. ;-)
Most of these places are in the style of the majestic Western parks, they're more isolated and initimate oasises. And obviously during my Texas years I spent a lot of time underground, so I'm biased on that basis as well. Realize that I left in 1990. Several of these parks weren't parks until substantially later. And 25+ years could well have changed things for the worse.
Have a great trip!
mikel
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