Camping in Autumn in Garner State Park (during COVID-19)

If like me, you’ve heard about the rare Texas Autumn colors at Garner State Park and want to know if they are worth visiting – and maybe you’re just a little bit curious on how I totally transformed into Bear Grylls and melted my sock – keep reading to learn more about our camping adventure this one weekend in November 2020.

What You Should Bring:

Note that these items are related to camping at Garner State Park, which is what I’d recommend if you are three+ hours away like we are (driving in from Austin, Texas).

• Tent – we use the Marmot. It’s super easy to assemble, but a little tight for two people. Also, it has netting along the top so you can see the stars at night – however, because it was so cold, we put on the rain fly so that we could help retain some heat.
• Sleeping bags – I’d recommend warm ones.
• Camping chairs
• Headlamps/flashlights
• Plastic tablecloth – this came in handy as the previous campers didn’t exactly leave a clean table.
• Cooler with snacks/food – we pre-made some chicken and veggies, wrapped in tinfoil, stored in our coolers and warmed up over the fire/using coals. It had a nice, unexpected smoky taste that was delicious!
• Firewood (they sell firewood at the store within the park for $5.99 a bundle)
• Warm clothes
• Swimsuits (yes, it is warm enough to swim during the day; we saw several people swimming, although I imagine not as many people as in the Summer)
• Kayak/Inner Tube
• Pillows
• Blankets
• Sleeping pads – I got the Zoobelieves sleeping pad (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RP81NJW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) and it was pretty amazing. Felt like the closest thing to get to an air mattress without actually having an air mattress. It was a little tricky to blow up and took a few minutes, but not too much trouble and was definitely worth it!
• Firestarter – especially if it had just rained!
• Trash bags
• Utensils/napkins
• Sunglasses
• Hat
• Camera
• *Optional: golf balls – there is a little mini-golf  course near the dancing area. We wanted to play, but it was closed by the time we checked it out. However, they had left out the golf clubs (I’m not sure if this is typical, or just a rare occurrence). We wished we had some golf balls so we could play.

What You Should Know:

• If you’re interested in camping, most Fridays and Saturdays are booked during the Autumn months (and Summer months as well). However there are a lot of Sundays that are available, which is what I decided on doing as I had planned on taking a Monday off anyway.
• The temperature fluctuates a lot. It was hitting a toasty 80 degrees in the afternoon and then fell to 39 degrees right before dawn. So I would be prepared for both types of weather. I’d recommend even bringing a jacket.
• You will need to wear a mask in the bathrooms and all the facilities.
• Although the camping reservation may say “site with water” which I had thought, meant viewing of the river, it actually means there is access to running water. Which is helpful, don’t get me wrong, but I would’ve like to have been closer to the water edge itself. I believe there are only five spots closer to the water (see picture below) and the RV park next door definitely has some prime viewing spots if you decide not to stay at the park itself. But again, just an fyi if you’re expecting river access from your tent spot.

What We Did:

Check in

Upon entering the park, you have to stop at the office to pick up your park registration (I regretted not having done this online immediately – you have to do it more than 24 hours in advance). We had to wait in line (pick a number, then wait inside in the waiting area where you will see a digital counter up on the wall). It seemed a little confusing because it said only a certain number of people inside at the time, but we were supposed to wait inside, so idk – but if there are too many people inside, they will be sure to tell you over the loudspeaker. Be sure to ask for a paper map from one of the park rangers – I didn’t, assuming they didn’t have any, and had to rely on my pdf version on my phone the whole time.

Set up camp

We set up our tent in our spot in the Oakmont Camping Area (see picture below where the lady is pointing). The ground was pretty packed so our stakes were kind of hard to push in, but we made do. We also put on our plastic picnic table cover (be sure to add plenty of rocks so it doesn’t fly away like ours almost did!)

Crystal Cave Trail

There isn’t any parking right next to the trail, but we parked by the dance floor and walked along the “Madrone Walkway” until we got to the entrance. We would’ve like to walk the Blinn River Trail but unfortunately it was closed due to erosion.

Crystal Cave Trail is exactly like it sounds. It is a rather steep, narrow, rocky, uphill hike  – doable, but will definitely make your heart pound until you come to a spot to your right, where you’ll see a cave to a small entrance with a small drop down. When you shine your light around the ceiling, you’ll see why it’s called Crystal Cave. It isn’t spectacularly shiny but still pretty cool. Unfortunately, there is some graffiti on the walls which kind of takes away from the naturalness of it. I wouldn’t recommend going towards the other end of the trail (where it says “Painted Rock”, because I honestly couldn’t tell where this painted rock was and the hike wasn’t particularly interesting. However, there were some nice overlooks and a crazy collection of piled rocks (see below).

Also note, that there are some helpful painted footprints to help you along the way if you wander off the main trail.

Hike up to Mount Baldy Summit

We hiked up towards Mount Baldy summit next. It was also kind of steep, although not as bad as Crystal Cave. As we were planning on watching the sunset, we brought our headlamps for when we would head back down in the dark. The sight was pretty nice. Althouogh, as we were looking out at the canyon, it might’ve been nice to look out towards the west side over the river during sunrise. Nevertheless, it was a pleasant walk and a pleasant, peaceful view. We also took some nice patriotic pictures at the top. The way down, because of the limited light, was a little slippery. Be prepared to tumble and catch yourself or slide down on your behind if necessary.

Dinner

Adam set up the fire and soon we had a roaring, warm conflagration. As there was a nice convenient grill, we were able to warm up our food as well by tossing a few coals over our foiled chicken. I would definitely recommend making food beforehand and having it ready to just heat-up. Unfortunately, Adam’s foil packet got a little soot in it, but he made do.  

Eating good food by the fire under a blanket of millions of twinkling stars was like something out of a novel. As the sky had been clear the whole day and there were scarce leaves on the trees, it felt like you could see all of the constellations and everything in between.

So cooollllddd…

As soon as the sun set, the temperature dropped. More so than what was predicted on the weather radar. And once our fire went out, it was definitely painful, as I hadn’t been prepared enough to bring a jacket. I layered on all of my clothes but was still freezing. So, in my desperation (while Adam was setting up his sleeping bag and sleeping pad), I remembered how survivalist Bear Grylls in one episode had dropped a bunch of rocks in the fire and then buried them underneath where he was going to sleep for the night to stay warm. So, in the dying embers of the fire, I dropped in my metal water bottle and some rocks. After a few minutes, I took out my water-bottle and burned my hand in the process because I didn’t realize how hot it was! I ran it under the cool water faucet to cool it down. And of course, not thinking it through either, I aimed to pick up my hot rocks, this time not with my hands. So I came up with the brilliant idea to pick them up with my socks – then I could have some toasty warm socks as well. I grabbed one rock and thought it had worked out swell – it was still hot for my hands but not warm enough to burn. Then I started smelling something burnt and see something ooze over the rocks – I realized that I was melting the elastic holding the socks together! So dropping that rock, I picked up rock number two with a hand towel I had brought from our kitchen at home – this surely wouldn’t melt anything. I wrapped the hot rock in the towel and put it by my pillow as a source of heat. Throughout the cold night, the wrapped rock migrated to my exposed ear to my feet. It lasted for a couple of hours and actually made a huge difference. When I woke up, I saw scorch marks on my towel. Lesson learned. Don’t play with fire. Unless you’re desperate, then do so carefully.

The next morning – I was still freezing. But we packed up camp, ate our meager breakfast of granola bars and mandarins and some leftover Fritos (we hadn’t planned our food situation too well), and decided to set out hiking on the Frio Canyon Trail. The first .25 mile had views of the river and orange colors on the autumnal trees. After the first .25 mile, it was mostly open and there was not much to see. However, there was a bird blind at the end of it – which, I guess, made the 1.5 hour worth it – where we saw several wild turkeys (see below)! Which was a real Thanksgiving treat haha, as I’d never seen live turkeys before. Although, note that the bird blind was closed due to COVID, but you could still look through the viewing areas on the side. Of course, one could’ve started form the opposite side of the trail and just walk up to the bird blind and back and it probably would’ve saved time.

With limited energy, we set out to kayak in the water. This was definitely the highlight of our trip. The colors were amazing and vivid – like something you would see out East. Although the water levels were low, we kayaked starting from the dam, upstream as far as we could go. The water was clear enough to see the pattern of rocks of the riverbed beneath. The contrast between the green shimmering river like emeralds  against topaz trees is striking. Eventually along as we kayaked, we came across a little side route that was shaded by these trees with leaves inspired by sunset that had the perfect lighting. We were met with a dead-end, but we turned around without much difficulty. We kayaked until the bottoms of our boats started scraping the bottom and alas, we had to turn back. But the journey back was just as fun – with a different perspective, it almost felt like a different path.

After a eventful and fun camping trip, we began our drive home!