Going With the Flow at Guadalupe River State Park
This slice of Hill Country heaven offers ample opportunity for fun, as long as Mother Nature is in the right mood.
Sometimes the easy park gives you the most trouble. You expect challenges at a place like far-flung Bentsen–Rio Grande Valley State Park, at the very southern edge of the state, where I and my trusty sidekick, Emily, spent a dark night in a lonely tent within earshot of the Rio Grande at an otherwise deserted campground. Or Big Bend Ranch, in far West Texas, where reaching our ridiculously remote campsite required a bone- and nerve-rattling journey through unforgiving desert. But during our most recent attempt at mild-mannered adventure, it was laid-back, family-friendly Guadalupe River State Park that thwarted us at every turn.
Hill Country.
Just 30 miles north of
San Antonio, the park descends from the hills covered in a tangle of Ashe junipers and spindly oaks down to a lush riparian forest of bald cypress along the river that has cut limestone bluffs in the river banks.
The legend goes that the idea for the state park originated back in the Seventies when a state legislative delegation was canoeing down one of Texas most scenic rivers. The group was accosted by an irate rancher who told the group to get off his river. This was the beginning of legislation that created public access to the river that opened in 1983. There are now nearly a dozen access points on the 15-20 miles of river between the state park and