Barton Creek Upper 11/09/13

Posted on November 10, 2013 by Ian

November 9th, 2013

Hike: Barton Creek Upper, Austin, TX

Weather: Cool, cloudy, drizzly, low 60s

Hikers: Ian, Court, Ike, MB, Biff

Length: 5.09 miles

Isaac and Mary Beth joined us on this hike, along with Biff. The trail head was near Westlake and the hike took us south towards our regular Green Belt starting spot. It has rained a lot in Austin in the past few weeks so the water is way up. I haven’t seen the water this high or flowing this fast in years. There were actual falls and rapids in the creek. You’ll have to excuse the amount of water pictures, but I wanted to have a record of the water actually being this high.

The trail descended steeply at the beginning, heading down to the creek. It was pretty muddy due to the recent rains and it was a bit drizzly at the beginning. Great hiking weather. There were quite a few other people hiking today and a lot of dogs too, but Biff behaved very well. His backpack has been chafing him a bit, so we’ll need to augment it somehow. The trail basically followed the creek the whole way. There were several trails at differing elevations and we moved among them as we went. There was even water streaming down a cliff face onto the trail at one point. The water combined with some autumn foliage made for some great photos and a great hike.

After the initial descent, the trail was pretty flat. We had to duck under a fallen tree across the trail about halfway through. We also saw three guys who decided to take advantage of the rarely full creek and go for a swim, despite the chilly temperature. I did not envy them, but to each their own.

Ike and Court; fallen tree in the background

There was a large cave carved out of a rock overhang that Isaac dubbed the Hobo Cave. He then went into the intricacies of the Hobo Code and all that entails. The full trail is actually almost 7 miles long, but we had to turn back a little early due to time constraints. The ascent back to the trail head was pretty tough, but a nice challenge to end the hike. I’m sure we’ll repeat this hike in the future.