Spring Lake Preserve – San Marcos, TX 1/17/22

Monday, January 17, 2022

Hike: Spring Lake Preserve – San Marcos, TX

Weather: cool, sunny, upper 50s

Hikers: Ian, Biff, Finn

Length: 4 miles

New trail! Even though I went to school here, I never knew this preserve existed. Spring Lake Preserve is about a mile from the Texas State campus.

From the Texas State website:

“Spring Lake Natural Area is a little known 251-acre park that sits just above Spring Lake, the headwaters of the San Marcos River. It offers many miles of natural surface trails and is open to the public for hiking, biking, birding, photography, and is a perfect companion to a visit to The Meadows Center.

Spring Lake Natural Area contains the typical meadows and woodlands found in the Edwards Plateau, with a wide variety of flora and fauna, ranging from Mexican buckeye to deer and other large mammals. The geology includes layers of the Eagle-Ford, Georgetown, Del Rio clay and Edwards limestone. The endangered golden-cheeked warbler breeds only in central Texas and nests in the ash juniper and oak found here.”

I got to the trail head around 9:30am and got a nice little hike of 4 miles in about 2 hours. Court unfortunately didn’t have MLK Day off, so I went and met her at her office in Kyle after my hike. The pups enjoyed getting out in the chill morning and burning some energy.

These trails are well maintained and marked, with metal blazes and trail junction markers throughout.

The terrain is varied and the trails go from dense woodlands to more grassy and open parcels. There’s also a pond and some sections with spanish moss hanging from the trees.

It’s nice to have found a new trail system fairly close to home. I want to come back with Court so she can experience it too. Until next time!