One can live for decades in the same place and yet be ignorant of awesome things near home. For me one of those things is Colorado Bend State Park, which is now my favorite Texas State Park.
Colorado Bend is located a little over two hours from Austin and San Antonio; just far enough to reduce crowd pressure compared to the more popular parks like Enchanted Rock, Guadalupe River, and Inks Lake. What makes Colorado Bend special is the diversity of things to do. Whether you like fishing and playing in a river, hiking, mountain biking, caving, or plunging into spring-fed pools, Colorado Bend has it all. I visited this week on a short backpacking trip with eight families from my son’s Cub Scout den – we had an absolute blast.
The River – The park is located on the last section of the Colorado upstream of the highland lakes. Although at high water levels Lake Buchanan backs into the park, often the river is free flowing over shallow limestone shelves. For a state chocked full of dams and lakes, the chance to play in a large natural river is rare. The bass fishing is supposedly good, but I failed to catch any in a half hour of messing around with my 3-weight fly rod. During non-COVID times kayaks may be rented but most of the river is shallow enough to walk across.
Trails – There are 35 miles of trails ranging from rocky uplands to paths along the river. The trails have large areas of shade, which is important in the Texas sun and heat. Although we were on foot, almost all of the trails are open to bikes as well. One of the park highlights is a hike to Gorman Falls where springs pour over a cliff with delicate travertine formations. It is an oasis of lushness in the otherwise arid hill country landscape. The hiking was so good that in two days our group of 10 year-olds hiked over 17 miles and everyone had fun even with a couple of blisters and skinned knees.
Exploring Underground – The limestone cliffs along the river hold caves, including Gorman Cave. The cave is only open to the public for scheduled tours; you cannot just walk in because TPWD is trying to limit the spread of white nose disease for the resident bats. But during non-COVID times you can reserve cave tours. Our scouts explored some of the shallow unnamed caves. I am confident we will go back for the full wild cave tour.
Getting Wet – While swimming is not allowed at Gorman Falls, getting wet is part of the adventure at the park’s other spring system, Spicewood Springs. A 3.5-mile trail follows the Spicewood Springs creek from its junction with the river up to the high-country. All along this path are absolutely stunning pools and waterfalls with ferns and moss growing everywhere. This trail has some of the best swimming holes in Texas. Of course, the entire river frontage is also open to swimming. This makes the park a great hot weather destination.
Camping – Colorado Bend camping favors real camping using tents and backpacks. There are only 15 sites that are drive in and RV friendly and even those lack electricity. The rest of the campsites are for tents only. This is a good thing. The backpacking sites are on the river with about a 1-mile walk, which is perfect for introducing kids to backpacking.
Overall Rating: A+. For a state park it does not get much better.
Vamonos Baby! 