Wolf Mountain Again!

Today was our last full day in the Hill Country of Texas.  We decided to cap off our visit by revisiting one of our favorite hikes:  Wolf Mountain Trail in Pedernales Falls State Park.  We had first visited it in 2004 on a business trip to San Antonio when we decided to camp in the Park for a couple days.  Our 2004 trip was in August and it was very hot!  This is spring and the temperatures were much more manageable, although by this afternoon it was quite warm - nearly 80F.

Here is a photo of Wolf Mountain - our first destination - from the beginning of the trail:

It was a lot of fun visiting our old haunts.  We saw some that we remembered from 2004, and some that we did not remember.  The funny thing was, though, that nearly every sight we thought worth photographing this trip was already in our photo album from 2004, even though we had no memory of it.

Here is a quiet little pool on Bee Creek, which empties into the Pedernales River:

In normal circumstances, this creek, like all the tributaries of the river, is a little trickle.  However, after heavy rains, these little streams become raging torrents.  People have been killed in flash floods in the park.  Kathy examines our map while perched above the little pool:

We turned up off the main trail and climbed Wolf Mountain.  On this trip, we discovered a remote tent platform with a great view.  If we had known about this in 2004, we would have camped here!

Much of our hike was in the open, and while these photos show a lot of green, there was a lot of rocky and sandy soil without much vegetation.  Still, down near the streams, the trees were plentiful:

We stumbled across an old stone wall that marked the boundary of a farm.  This seems to be a great place to plant a cabin, we thought.  But we didn't recall seeing any cabins on our prior hike in 2004.

No sooner did we express the thought that a cabin would be appropriate there, then the ruins of an old cabin appeared.  Here's Kathy examining the ruins:









Now, we have documentary proof that our memories are faulty.  Although we had no memory of the cabin ruins, here is a photo of David in 2004, standing in the very same ruins:

Thus we learn that all things new are old again (or is it that all things old are new again?).  So it's fitting and proper that we end this blog entry with a copy of the very first shadow photo we took of ourselves - on the 2004 hike in Perdenales Falls State Park:

HAPPY TRAILS!