San Gabriel River Trail (Georgetown, TX) – December 2020

 This was a place that Bill talked about frequently, and I never had the chance to get up that way during the Georgetown Running Club 2020 Summer Tour.  Well, blame that on me.  I did venture up here on the weekend, and it was packed full of people, and there was no place to park.  Since I had some time off coming up soon, I knew I could get here on a weekday and actually get in the park.  The turn-off by the water tower isn’t well-marked, but once you realize it’s there, it’s easy to get too.

 The park you enter into is actually Cedar Breaks Park, which has a lot of slots set aside for camping and RVing.  I was heading for the trailhead just past the entryway which was the San Gabriel River Trail (also known as the Goodwater Loop).  Thanks to the nearby dam, this was where the San Gabriel River became Lake Georgetown.  I did poke around a couple of the campsites to get some pictures, and then I got on the trail.

 At first there wasn’t much different than any other trail I was on, but it was still new-to-me, so it was.  Occasionally there would be a break in the trees where I’d try to get some pictures of the lake (also called the “North Fork” of the San Gabriel River).  I’d been told if you went to down the trail far enough there was a really good waterfall.  Once vantage point for pictures was a really nice open expanse, as I stood on the edge of a cliff.

 I’d encountered some individuals on the trail, and we traveled together for a bit.  They had a faster pace than me, as I was going more slow to soak in the view and take some pictures every now and then.  They were soon a distance ahead of me.  This was a case of doing more research before hitting the trail would’ve been good, as the Goodwater Loop technically goes 26 miles around the lake, circling to the far side of the lake, and then back to the dam.  Yeah, I didn’t have enough beverage to do that today.  I still would what I could with the supplies I had.  The views were fabulous.  This was a place I needed to return to, and figure out how I could do the whole thing in manageable chunks.