Mount Lakeway and Finn’s First Hike – Lakeway, TX 10/29/17

Sunday, October 29, 2017

Mount Lakeway Trail – Lakeway, TX

Ian, Court, Biff, Finn

Sunny, warm, mid 80s

5.4 miles

We added a new member to our family in the past few weeks and today was his first hike.  Finnigan is a Hurricane Harvey rescue that we got from the PAWS shelter in Kyle, near Courtney’s office.  He is a hound mix and is almost 6 months old, so still very much a puppy.  His full name is Finnigan Tom Petty.  He was given the Tom Petty moniker at the shelter, as they got him right around the time Tom Petty died, and we decided to keep it as his middle name.

He is a great hiker and does very well on leash.  This was the first of many hikes and he will most certainly be a good backpacker too.

I also started to use Google Photos as my main photo repository, which should make it way easier to edit and upload photos.  It’s time to up the blog game, so over the next few weeks I’m hoping to make this whole place more navigable and prettier to look at.

Mount Lakeway is a trail I found on Alltrails.com and it turned out to be a nice little trail.  It starts out on a trail system called Canyonlands Trails in a newer subdivision out in Lakeway.

The trails starts out meandering along a canyon rim and then down into the canyon, where the temperature drop was noticeable and well received.

We almost ran directly into a deer down in the canyon as we were starting to climb back up the other side.  The dogs were curious, but didn’t bark and the deer just stared at us for a few moments before picking its way down a side trail.

After coming out of the canyon, the climb begins in earnest up to the “summit” of Mount Lakeway, which is really just a big hill, but hey, that’s the best we have in Central Texas!

The trail switchbacks a million times once you get closer to the top, so it adds quite a bit of distance.  There is also a path that just follows the power line ROW, which we used some of to get back down instead of switchbacking.  We reached the top and took a snack and water break for everyone while we enjoyed the views.

We headed back down the way we came and got back to the car with some tired pups.  Finn did great on his first hike.