Pace Bend Park (Spicewood, TX) – December 2020

 In the quest to find new places to hike, I used Google Maps to spiral out to find places.  There were a number of parks I discovered, but it was unclear either how to access them or if there was a safe place to leave my car.  And then I came across Pace Bend Park.  Sure it was a bit of a drive, but I figured it would be worth it.  I cruised down Route 620 west of Mansfield Dam, and turned on to Lakeway Blvd.  Then I had to take Highlands Blvd to Bee Creek Road, until finally going north on 2322 which would take me to my destination.  I did note a number of other trails into the hill country here, but no parking spaces.  And the views were pretty nice too.  So even if the park was a bust, at least the drive was nice.

 It was a few bucks to enter the park.  I drove around the main road of it first in order to get a feel of the area.  Considering the time of year, there were a number of side roads for camp sites (or potential other trails) which were blocked off.  On the end of the park opposite the entrance was a private camp ground, which based on the signs was used by some zealot organization for religious indoctrination.  That was good to know.  The park is essentially a peninsula made up by the Colorado River snaking back and forth as it flows towards Austin.

 There were some extensive bike trails, which could also be used for hiking.  My time to explore this today was limited, so those were something I would have to come back for.  At a number of places, I did pull over at camp sites in order to get a view of the water, which was something I rarely got to see on my hikes in the Austin area.  There was one cove I was checking out that had some nice overhangs.  There was a group of people who were setting up a zipline to go across it.  That sounds fun, guys, but I saw few strong trees to anchor the line with.  I left them to it.

 Yeah, a lot of the pictures were taken standing on the edge of a cliff and looking over the water.  One shot had a large hotel-like building on the other side of the water.  Checking Google Maps, I figured out that was the “Island on Lake Travis.”  That’s actually a cluster of high-end condos.  Getting back to the park, due to the time of year, most of the vegetation was brown.  I would like to come back in the spring when it was green.  And that might be the time to spend all day exploring some of those other trails.