Saturday Paddlers - San Marcos River

Note: Left click on any photograph to enlarge.

Eleven paddlers from San Antonio and Austin met at the Power Olympic Outdoor Center to launch their ten kayaks and one canoe on the San Marcos River. With some added distance due to a detour up the Blanco River from where it joins the San Marcos, we totaled about six and a half miles to our take-out at San Marcos River Retreat. The river was running at about 88 cfs, which was sufficient for a nice ride. In the photo above, Kathy leads Miguel and Vic around one of the many downed trees in the river.

Kathy got some shots of me running the falls at the dam at the head of Thompson's Island, just a short distance from the put-in. I did take on a few gallons of water as my bow plunged below the surface of the water.

Vic did just fine on his first outing with the Saturday Paddlers.

The waterfall where the diversion channel rejoins the river has its own special charm(s).

Plenty of shade for the paddlers.

Miguel glides past.

A Green Heron on the Blanco River, at the point where a portage would have been required to continue upstream.

Only Laurel accompanied me that far up the Blanco as the remaining paddlers stopped for lunch.

The view back downstream.

After rejoining the San Marcos, we stopped for a refreshing dip just below the portage at Cummings Dam. As you can see, there were a few more people on the river. Can you tell which two are Laurel and Jodie? Later, between Westerfield Crossing (the next road crossing below the dam) and our take-out at the park, we must have passed at least two hundred tubers.

Kathy, Mike, Miguel and I made a short detour to view the Hays County courthouse and town square in San Marcos before heading back to San Antonio.








For ten more photos of this outing, click here to make your own detour over to my Flickr page, then click on either "Slideshow" in the upper right of the page or "Detail" on the left.