On Monday, May 4th, five Houston Canoe Club paddlers spent an enjoyable day on the San Marcos River.
Louis Aulbach, Linda Gorski and John Rich drove to San Marcos on Sunday, and camped out overnight at the San Marcos River Retreat, run by Tom Goynes. He has beautiful riverfront campground property there. His campground is no longer open to the general public – he caters specifically to church and school groups. But he may make exceptions for HCC members. No alcohol allowed. Donna Grimes and Ken Anderson got up early on Monday morning and drove over to join us there.
You can view the San Marcos River Retreat campground web site, here: Pecan Park Retreat
The map in the first image below shows the location of this section of the San Marcos River, relative to Houston. It’s a 2½–hour drive.
This second map below shows the detail of the area of this river section, highlighted in blue. The put-in was the San Marcos River Retreat campground, and the take-out was at the Scull Road bridge crossing. This is about a 4-mile paddle. Short enough that you have time to loiter and play at the rapids.
This third image shows an aerial view of the river and surrounding terrain.
And the fourth image is the USGS water gauge chart. The water flow was about 95 cubic feet per second (CFS). The average is about 130 CFS, so this was a little low. But it was enough to provide clearance so that we didn’t drag on the bottom, and also still provided some fun little rapids in the rocky sections.
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| Location map |
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Detail map |
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Aerial view |
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Water chart |
Louis & Linda enjoy the shade of the campground, while the boats stand ready for service in the morning. Here you see Linda’s cute little solo whitewater boat (green), Louis’ tandem whitewater boat (blue), and John’s big expedition cruiser (red).
Louis, Linda and Donna had all just purchased used boats from Phil Montgomery during a garage clearance sale, and they were all anxious to try out their new toys. Here, Louis assist Linda in installing the air bags in her new whitewater solo boat.
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| Campsite |
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Preparing boats |
And with that, we’re off carrying the boats down the hill and launching onto the water!
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Donna approaches a small rapid
with pillow rocks, which appear
suddenly after coming around a
bend. |
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Donna plays with a ledge in
her new C1 kayak. |
I don’t understand the terminology for these things. It looks like a kayak, but since she’s squatting in it instead of having her legs stretched out in front inside, she insists that it is a “C1” instead of a kayak. Yeah, okay…
Louis is afloat in his new tandem whitewater boat. And the way the bow is sticking up in the air, he has a balance problem to work on with this boat, as a solo paddler. A few minutes later he tied some water jugs to the front on the inside to add some weight and even things out a little.
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Louis
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At one bend in the river there is an old cemetery, with graves dating from around 1915 to 1925, all containing Hispanic names. In the first photo below you see Louis, John and Linda posing with the sign. It has a fresh new barbed wire fence around it to keep the cows out from the surrounding pastures. This brings up so many questions: Was there a Mexican community here? Were they ancestors of the original Mexican pioneers in Texas? Escapees from the violence of the Mexican revolution? Victims of the influenza epidemic? Why do they call it the "White River"?
The second photo is an example of just one of the headstones, many of which have toppled over onto the ground. This one is interpreted in English as: “A girl, Omanita Cani, who was born the day 28 February, year of 1920, and died the 1st day of May of 1920". Yes, that’s right, little Omanita died only two months old. There may be a character or two missing from the beginning of the first name, and the end of the last name, where concrete has chipped off the cross arms with age.
And the third photo shows one of several of these odd concrete helmet-shaped items in the cemetery, this one adorned with seashells and colored baubles.
Photo 1: Linda finds a heart-shaped rock. Awww, isn’t that sweet?
Photo 2: The boats are pulled over at a gravel bar for a lunch break.
Photo 3: Having a relaxing lunch in the grass: Linda, Donna, Ken and Louis. Ken brought a little tripod stool, while the rest of us sit on our PFD’s for comfort on the gravel.
The three new boat owners; Louis, Linda & Donna, pose for a photo. They are going to send this photo to the seller, Phil Montgomery, to show him that his former assets are being put to good use. The ropes you see hanging down are a common sight along the river, for swinging out over the water and jumping in.
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New boats
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| River scenery |
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Interesting tree roots
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How about a few wildlife photos? There were various types of critters seen on the river; ducks and other birds, turtles, deer, even a snake!
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| Goose |
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Turtles |
John almost stepped on this snake, which he thinks was a harmless water snake, and already half-dead for some reason. In this photo, he smiles for the camera, while keeping a wary eye on the snake. A half-full pack of cigarettes was found a few feet from the snake, so he might have already had a human encounter, and suffered for it, while frightening someone out of their smokes.
This was the best rapid on the river that day, and here you see Linda threading the needle through the rocks. In the background, Ken and Donna await their turn, while billy goats munch on hillside grass in the background.
Despite Donna's vast whitewater experience, she managed to get her new kayak hung up sideways between two rocks. And the boat is so new that she hasn't yet purchased a spray skirt for it, so it immediately filled up to the brim with water. The photo is titled "Donna on the rocks" - sounds like an alcoholic beverage you would order at a bar! While Donna's new boat may be small, I can personally testify that it seems to hold several hundred pounds of water when full. That thing was hard to budge!
Photo 1: The take-out location was the low wooden bridge crossing called Scull Road. That’s “scull” as in a type of boat or oar. Quite fitting for a river that is popular with so many boaters.
Photo 2: The location is also marked by this sign on a tree, showing a different kind of “scull”. Either someone didn’t understand the proper name of the road, or they were having fun with a homonym pun.
Photo 3: Linda managed to get everyone to quit scurrying around long enough from the usual hectic take-out activity, to stand still and pose for this group photo. From left to right: Donna, Louis, Linda, Ken & John.
I’ll wrap this story up with a couple of my prettier flower photos from the trip.
This was my first experience on the San Marcos River, and I enjoyed it greatly. On the weekends it’s a madhouse of people floating and drinking on inner tubes. But since our paddle day was a Monday, we had the river all to ourselves, with not a single other tuber or boater encountered anywhere.