Pedernales Falls

Pedernales Falls is a beautiful piece of Texas Hill Country.  Adam and I visited last weekend for a 30K trail race.  I had visited once before in college, but it was Adam's first time out there.

We left Macie and Winnie with my mom because we didn't have a good plan as to what to do with them while we ran and headed out on Friday evening.  It was the first time I've ever set up camp at night and it was not as bad as I've always thought it would be.

One of the coolest parts of the trip was getting to sleep under the stars during the meteor shower.  We saw quite a few and they blew my mind.  This was also the first time I've truly "slept under the stars."  I guess every time you camp, technically you do sleep under the stars, but this time, there was nothing between me and Mother Nature.  This was in part thanks to forecast for no rain and the Texas heat.  I would wake up from time to time during the night and think oh yeah...I'm like REALLY outside!

The next day, our race didn't start until 7PM, so we got up made our coffee, tried some freezer bag grits (sorry Mom--don't think we'll try this recipe again), and went out to watch the 10K trail run that was scheduled for the morning.  It was fun watching the leaders come in.  And randomly, one of my old students was there.  He didn't recognize me in my "street" clothes and big sunglasses, so we didn't have a heart-filled reunion.

The rest of the day was ours to explore, wade in the river, and drink l-o-t-s of water.  The first thing we went to explore were the falls.  There is no swimming allowed at the falls due to the danger of flash flooding.

Nearby, we found a pocket of water fed by a spring.  I climbed around some awkward rocks to see what the spring felt like.  I had to assume a weird yoga-like position to get down to the water.  The rock I'm sitting on really just had a pointy ridge that sloped off down the back.

After exploring the falls, we went a bit off trail (accidentally) to explore further down river.  Here, we encountered the steepest down slope we've ever hiked.  You really can't tell how steep it was from the pictures.

This one is right before I had my first fall of the day.  I experienced both kinds of falls at the falls:  a slip and a trip.  I slipped right after this picture, and I tripped later that day during the race.

For the rest of the afternoon, we waded in the river, threw rocks, people watched, and turtle dodged.  The water looks a bit icky in the picture, but it was really nice.

I will save a race report for another post.  I'm kind of putting that off.  There's a reason for that.  Stay tuned.