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February 13, 2005

Austin, Hiker's Paradise

Today is one of those days that makes me really love Austin! We had a heavy rain some time before daylight, and the the skies opened up to a brilliant blue by mid morning, with low 70s and a nice breeze. Tough to beat for February!

These are perfect hiking conditions for the canyons here in the Great Hills area of Austin, since the low area creeks will be really flowing with the rain runoff.

It's a dudes' weekend with just Scott and me home. Meg, Kate, and Deb are in Corpus Christi and Claire went with some of her ATA team members to Houston for this weekend's tennis tournaments.

After Scott's sunday class and Church we had lunch and took off for a new hiking trail. We started at where Bluffstone dead ends by Bluegrass and followed a trail which was made as they cleared a path for power line towers.

As we went down the trail a single deer stood there like a sentry on the path ahead of us. He wouldn't budge and just stared at us. I was concerned it was a buck looking to mess with us, when about 8 of his buddies leaped from the woods next to the trail. With that, he lost interest in us, and followed his buddies to go mess with other hikers I'm sure.

The hike was not as scenic as the trails behind our house, or by the preserve area by the "Jack and the Beanstalk" playground (so named by the kids because of the climbing beanstalk on the playground equipment.)

The surprise came at the end of the trail when Scott and I came upon a lake, which we never knew existed. From the satellite photo, we pulled down from the Microsoft Terra Server it did not show a lake. It may well only exist after a heavy rain, but it sure looked like someone had built a dock on it.

Here's the map with the waypoints from our etrex GPS device added in and my Photoshop hacked in blue spot where we found the lake.

Maybe next hike, the fishing poles will come along...

Overall, not a bad dudes' weekend for us!

Posted by Jim at February 13, 2005 3:31 PM

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Today is one of those days that makes me really love Austin! We had a heavy rain some time before daylight, and the the skies opened up to a brilliant blue by mid morning, with low 70s and a nice breeze. Tough to beat for February! These are perfect hiking conditions for the canyons here in the Great Hills area of Austin, since the low area creeks will be really flowing with the rain runoff. It's a dudes' weekend with just Scott and me home. Meg, Kate, and Deb are in Corpus Christi and Claire went with some of her ATA team members to Houston for this weekend's tennis tournaments. After Scott's sunday class and Church we had lunch and took off for a new hiking trail. We started at where Bluffstone dead ends by Bluegrass and followed a trail which was made as they cleared a path for power line towers. As we went down the trail a single deer stood there like a sentry on the path ahead of us. He wouldn't budge and just stared at us. I was concerned it was a buck looking to mess with us, when about 8 of his buddies leaped from the woods next to the trail. With that, he lost interest in us, and followed his buddies to go mess with other hikers I'm sure. The hike was not as scenic as the trails behind our house, or by the preserve area by the "Jack and the Beanstalk" playground (so named by the kids because of the climbing beanstalk on the playground equipment.) The surprise came at the end of the trail when Scott and I came upon a lake, which we never knew existed. From the satellite photo, we pulled down from the Microsoft Terra Server it did not show a lake. It may well only exist after a heavy rain, but it sure looked like someone had built a dock on it.
Here's the map with the waypoints from our etrex GPS device added in and my Photoshop hacked in blue spot where we found the lake. Maybe next hike, the fishing poles will come along... Overall, not a bad dudes' weekend for us!