Pierce Wanderings
Texas Hiking (and elsewhere)
Lake Somerville – Nails Creek State Park 5/19/18
Saturday, May 19, 2018
Lake Somerville – Nails Creek State Park – near Brenham, TX
Partly cloudy, warm, pleasant, upper 70s
Ian, Biff, Finn
5.6 miles
Another new State Park! We went to Navasota for the weekend and I went hiking with the dogs while Court drove up to Tyler with her mom for work stuff.
I left early to make the hour drive to Lake Somerville and got to the trail just before the park headquarters opened at 8am. The Texas heat is starting to hit and that means the hikes have to be early, especially if the dogs are coming along. The Lake Somerville Trailway is a hiking/equestrian trail that actually goes 13 miles (one way) around the lake, but due to some recent flooding, horses aren’t allowed right now. I would also find out, the hard way, that the trail I had chosen today was cut short due to this same flood damage.
I started out doing the short Nails Creek Trail loop which goes along the lakeshore and is very sandy with a lot of flowers. There were a lot of flowers in general on this hike, which was a nice surprise, especially this late in the spring.
After that I hit the main trailway. It is a wide track for horses, but is still very pretty. I only saw two other hikers the whole day. A couple of miles in I got to a bridge and that was to be my turnaround point for the day, due to the unexpected closure.
As we backtracked, Biff decided it was time for a break.
I used Finn’s new leash which attaches to a hip belt so it made hiking with two dogs much easier, as I had one hand free most of the time. When we got back to the car we had a quick water and snack break. I was going to do another short loop by the lake, but about 5 minutes down the trail Biff gave me the look that it was time to call it a day so we got back to the car and blasted the AC.
Map: https://www.gaiagps.com/public/DSqnU5sTLqjIY4x342ozq5ci?embed=True
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