Inks Lake Overnight 11/25/17-11/26/17

Saturday and Sunday, November 25-26, 2017

Inks Lake State Park near Burnet, TX

Valley Spring Creek Trail and Devil’s Backbone Trail

Ian, Court, Biff, Finn

Since Finn had done a couple of regular hikes, it was time to get him out on his first overnight.  We headed out on Thanksgiving weekend to one of our favorite state parks, Inks Lake.

We arrived around 2:30pm and set up camp, then drove down to the other side of the park to check out the sunset over Devil’s Waterhole.

I had the fire all set up and ready to light when we got back.  Dinner was sausage wraps grilled over the fire and a bad attempt at homemade potato salad.  The sausages were good at least.  Harry Potter trivia was played (yes, nerds) while waiting on dinner and we sat around the fire for a bit before bed.  Finn didn’t quite get the fire, I don’t think.

We headed to bed before hiker midnight (9pm) and planned to get up and hike early.

It didn’t get too cold overnight and the pups did well in the tent.  We woke up a little after sunrise and made some awesome coffee (Jiva Cubes + Copper Cow Coffee Milk + Sugar Portables) along with my first ever Mountain House scrambled egg breakfast, which was pretty decent, for dehydrated eggs.  I don’t think I could do it every day, but it certainly worked for a single overnight.

We hiked the northern part of the park around Devil’s Waterhole, which wasn’t a super long hike, a little over 3 miles, but enjoyable nonetheless.  It started off scrambling up the gneiss and then wound around to a nice view of the lake.

The trail then descended into a forested hollow and met up with the park road at the end.  I will say that the last quarter mile or so was full of stickers and was hell on the dog’s feet.  We had to stop every 50 yards or so to pick them out of their paws.  But they were troopers.

We retraced our steps, did the other half of the Valley Spring Creek loop, and headed back to town.  As always, a wonderful time out at Inks.