Canoeing on the San Marcos River
Ok, enough sitting around. I've put back all the weight I walked off over the last few months, plus some, so when Jon told me we could get a good rate on a canoe at the Texas State Outdoor Center, it was off to the river. You put in right there on campus, and if you are lucky and the water is not flowing too fast, you paddle back to the same spot. We were so worried about it we went down to the first rapids and back twice, plus a couple of excursions upstream from the takeout point.
Upstream, in Sewell Park, is the only place we came close to getting wet. I heard an unusual whistle and looked up to realize we were playing frisbee from the canoe with the world renowned Frisbee Dan. Jon tells me he's been written up in USA Today, but when I looked him up I found this video on Texas State TV at http://www.txstate.tv/ . It's harder than you might expect to catch and throw a frisbee from a canoe. Once we had water coming over the side of the canoe. Fortunately, we covered, since I was not prepared to go swimming and you'd have missed the picture version of the trip.
The San Marcos river is similar to the Comal, in that it is spring fed from the Edwards Aquifer. I'm still amazed to see these huge volumes of water flowing from springs. The San Marcos originates a short distance upstream from campus at Aquarena Springs, a well known recreation area.
Our original plan was for a half day trip, but when we arrived we realized we couldn't get the canoe until 2:00pm, so it became a 2 hour trip. The lower end of our trip was at Rio Vista rapids, pictured below. We didn't shoot them, since, as mentioned above, I wasn't prepared to go swimming. I also wasn't prepared to try to return to our pickup point from below the rapids.
Ok, enough sitting around. I've put back all the weight I walked off over the last few months, plus some, so when Jon told me we could get a good rate on a canoe at the Texas State Outdoor Center, it was off to the river. You put in right there on campus, and if you are lucky and the water is not flowing too fast, you paddle back to the same spot. We were so worried about it we went down to the first rapids and back twice, plus a couple of excursions upstream from the takeout point.
Upstream, in Sewell Park, is the only place we came close to getting wet. I heard an unusual whistle and looked up to realize we were playing frisbee from the canoe with the world renowned Frisbee Dan. Jon tells me he's been written up in USA Today, but when I looked him up I found this video on Texas State TV at http://www.txstate.tv/ . It's harder than you might expect to catch and throw a frisbee from a canoe. Once we had water coming over the side of the canoe. Fortunately, we covered, since I was not prepared to go swimming and you'd have missed the picture version of the trip.
The San Marcos river is similar to the Comal, in that it is spring fed from the Edwards Aquifer. I'm still amazed to see these huge volumes of water flowing from springs. The San Marcos originates a short distance upstream from campus at Aquarena Springs, a well known recreation area.
Our original plan was for a half day trip, but when we arrived we realized we couldn't get the canoe until 2:00pm, so it became a 2 hour trip. The lower end of our trip was at Rio Vista rapids, pictured below. We didn't shoot them, since, as mentioned above, I wasn't prepared to go swimming. I also wasn't prepared to try to return to our pickup point from below the rapids.
Even though our trip was only a few miles, all within the city of San Marcos, there was some very nice canoeing and scenery.
Jon and I had a great time on the river, then capped it off with a nice dinner at sunset at the San Marcos Pub and Grill, which overlooks the Rio Vista rapids.
Here's a view looking toward the pub from below the rapids, and then sunset over the rapids from the pub. Riley had nothing on me.
2 comments:
Ha, Jon certainly surprised me when I spoke to him on the phone and he told me that he was canoeing towards some rapids! I'm glad you guys had a good time.
Love,
Nicole
Yes, we were just arriving at the rapids when you called. I managed to get us headed back upstream, which was our plan all along. It would be fun to shoot the rapids in the summer when you didn't mind getting wet, and if you had a shuttle arranged downstream. We didn't want to have to portage a few miles back upstream. That might ruin our idylic evening and night!
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