Caminante no hay puentes, se hace puentes al andar

One of my favorite ways to pass time on long drives, sit through traffic without losing my mind, and make long walks and runs even more enjoyable is to listen to podcasts. In lieu of reading books on the outdoors, podcasts are an excellent way to learn useful information about the outdoors in addition to learn about amazing people doing incredible things. If you’re anything like me, you amass…

Group Camping at Palmetto State Park

Palmetto State Park, so named for its dwarf palmettos, is located in Gonzales, TX and was the site for a group camping trip with friends from a local environmental justice group. My partner and I had been wanting to do a group trip for a while and this was the perfect reason to make it happen.

2016 was a really rough year in general, but the summer was particularly overwhelming. It’s amazing…

In Defense of Earth

If you’re anything like me, you’ve been painstakingly watching the train wreck that is 45 and his presidency. It’s felt quite challenging to muster up the energy to write anything because of news cycle fatigue: the constant checking and refreshing of news sites out of fear that something even worse had unfolded during the time I slept or was in the shower or was brushing my teeth or was working…

I haven’t spent much time driving further west than Albuquerque so when an opportunity presented itself to go on a road trip to Arizona, I jumped at the chance. A friend of mine who has family in Arizona invited folks out to his parents’ place for a ceremony that was being held for another member of his family. Driving straight from Austin to Window Rock would have been about 13-14 hours so we…

Beating the Heat in Central Texas State Parks

If you’re fortunate enough to live in the South or Southwest, you know that October and November can still be considered a part of swimming season. In mid-October and early November we had consecutive 85+/90+ degree weather days that left me longing for some pool time and, better yet, reliving visits to some of the beautiful and relaxing swimming holes that are surprisingly plentiful in the…

Hiking, Camping & the Great Outdoors Roundup

It’s time for the next edition of the hiking, camping & the great outdoors roundup. If you’ve come across an article you recommend, please share it with me! Happy reading.

National Parks

Sierra Club – The Native American Alliance to Protect the Grand Canyon (an overview of the coalition work that Save the Confluence, led by Navajo activists, is doing to keep big developers out of the Grand Canyon…

Family Fun in Palo Duro Canyon

March can be a tricky month – winter and spring are struggling with each other for dominance and humans are placed in the middle of a battle between goliaths. Although the weather wasn’t quite as warm as we originally thought (and hoped), we survived our stay in Palo Duro Canyon and became all the tougher for it. Or at least I like to think so.

This camping trip was a special trip because it was…

At the suggestion of a friend, I’m going to start sharing articles on hiking, camping & the outdoors biweekly or monthly, depending on what’s on my radar. It’s a good way to support what other folks are writing as well as share resources, which I know I always appreciate. If you’ve come across an article you really like, share it in the comments section – I’d love to check it out.

Children &…

Happy 100th, National Park Service!

The National Park Service officially turned 100 on August 25th, but they’ve been celebrating the entire year. To encourage folks to go and visit our beautiful national parks, they are waiving entrance fees on certain weekends, and one of those weekends is upon us! If you happen to live close enough to a national park to easily get there, do it! Leave now! Be spontaneous and enjoy the parks! Let…

A Brief & Wondrous Visit to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

The Smoky Mountains stole my heart. I admit to being one of those people who shrugged off the idea of visiting Tennessee and finding anything beautiful in the landscape – probably in the way a lot of people think about Texas. My ignorance was quickly challenged after my first glimpse at the Smoky Mountains around three years ago. I was fortunate to participate in a workshop / training at the High…

The day we arrived at Colorado Bend was quite an active day. The park was hosting an educational program featuring actors who were role-playing as Buffalo Soldiers and sharing a bit of history about their contributions to the state of Texas. In many ways the Buffalo Soldiers, who were all black, fought racism and prejudice in order to be recognized as human beings who were capable of positively contributing to their government. As one of the kids in a video explains, black people are primarily defined by their enslavement in history books, not by their heroism, intelligence, and contributions to humankind. To the descendants of the Buffalo Soldiers, the work their ancestors did was heroic and important. At the same time, the Buffalo Soldiers were enlisted by the government to essentially fight and kill Native American peoples in order to continue settling the land (paving the way for more white settlers to come).

The Texas Parks & Wildlife Department has a page and video dedicated to the Buffalo Soldiers that I encourage everyone to check out. The work of the Buffalo Soldiers is framed as “continuing the westward expansion of the United States,” which to me basically means “continuing the settler colonial project of eradicating Native peoples from the land.” However, the Buffalo Soldiers did build roads and telegraph lines, which were of great benefit to many people, and helped black people gain more acceptance by society. My aim in bringing this up is not to dismiss the hardships the Buffalo Soldiers faced or say that they were horrible people – I think that they did what they needed to do to survive. I bring this up because writing this blog from a decolonial perspective means that I have a responsibility to address narratives that people might not otherwise challenge or critique if it were any other kind of blog.

So yes, Colorado Bend State Park! After we pitched our tent we immediately ventured out to the peaceful and scenic Spicewood Springs Trail, which connects to the Spicewood Canyon Trail and allows you to do a little 3.5-mile loop back to the trailhead. We came across a small pool soon after we set off on the hike and encountered a series of small waterfalls immediately after. If you’re interested in getting to the breathtaking views right away, this loop does not disappoint! There were some areas of the trail that required that you get your feet a little wet, but it wasn’t anything that a good pair of hiking boots can’t handle. The colors on the trail were vibrant and required many stops just to take it all in.

  *maps courtesy of the Texas Parks & Wildlife website

  After we finished the Spicewood loop we went back to our campsite to rest for a bit before getting dinner started. As we were sitting down to eat, a herd of deer descended from the hill behind us to make their way to the water. It was beautiful and somewhat incredible that they weren’t bothered by us or the group camping next to us – all they cared about was getting down by the river.

That night the sky was perfectly clear and we could see thousands of stars in the sky. We stayed up late, using Google Sky to map out constellations and recount what we knew about their origin story. It didn’t compare to the stars in West Texas, but it’s also better than the night sky in Austin. At the time there was no burn ban so we were able to stay up late, warmed by the heat of the campfire.

Our big goal for the next day was to see Gorman Falls. The first time we visited Colorado Bend SP we had hoped to join a guided hike to the falls but arrived too late. We mapped out a route that took us through several trails we assumed were connected, only to find out that they were not connected. It was ultimately a happy accident – even though we finished exhausted – because the journey took us to the tinaja, which is a bedrock depression carved out by springs and seeps, that’s not easy to get to. We started off at the Cedar Chopper Loop (moderate), jumped on the Tinaja Trail (very challenging), and ended up on the Gorman Falls Trail (challenging): a total of approximately four miles to get to the falls.

The last portion of the trail to the falls is a steep descent. Many people we saw along the way were smart to bring hiking poles because it’s a bit of a sneaky descent and climb. There’s a rail and chain that you’re able to use for additional support but it’s really important that you take your time going down and coming up.

Gorman Falls is a majestic 60-foot waterfall and the vegetation around it is a bright shade of green. At the base of the trail we came to a seating area next to a tree that provided a lot of nice shade so that you could cool down after the hike. Because we hadn’t seen a lot of people out on the trails, it surprised me to find many people by the falls, talking excitedly and posing for pictures with their friends. Although we took the longer route, if you stick with only using the Gorman Falls Trail to get there, it’s only a hike of about 1.25 miles which makes it more accessible for people to get to.

Gorman Falls was a great way to end our time at Colorado Bend State Park. There are still a lot more trails to explore and areas to revisit and we can’t wait to return!

  Colorado Bend State Park – Bend, TX 76824

(325) 628-3240

Adults: $5 daily / Kids Under 12: Free

REI Garage Sale, take 2

The last time we went to an REI garage sale, we were total rookies. We showed up a little before 9am (the sale started at 9) and by then, there were a couple of hundred people in line ahead of us. Once there, we had to wait in line well past after 9am for the early birds to finish their rounds. This time, we decided to go hard(er).

We initially talked about arriving at 6:30am, but that felt like…

Disappointed by “National Parks Adventure”

I wanted to like McGillivray Freeman’s “National Park Adventure.” I really did. The trailer looked mesmerizing and I was excited by the idea of having a closer look at some of the national parks I want to visit. But there was a part of me that also expected disappointment, based on the trailer alone.

The documentary follows an expert climber, his stepson, and a family friend who set out on an…

Magical Hikes: Enchanted Rock State Natural Area

As early as junior high, maybe high school, I recall people talking about Enchanted Rockand wanting to take road trips to visit this giant rock. Even though it’s a well-known place to many in the Austin area, the first time I visited the rock was two years ago on New Year’s Day. It was a short trip with friends that included a xican@ lunch at the top of the rock before coming back down and…

The Forgotten History of ‘Violent Displacement’ of Indians that Helped Create the National Parks

So many feelings reading this piece because it gets at the heart of why I wanted to start this blog, to a certain extent. I’ve copied and pasted the text from the article directly into this post and linked the original article at the end. I wonder what would happen if the different state and national parks would visible post and share information that discussed the violent removal of native…