Texas is not the ideal place for camping during the month of June. The heat can be unbearable and summer thunderstorms are unpredictable. There are only a handful of state parks I would consider camping at during the summer, Guadalupe River State Park is one of them. The river is gorgeous and allows a great escape from the heat. And there is a plethora of hiking options, all with a good amount of tree coverage.
Does this park sound or look familiar? We visited for a day trip back in 2018 – check out that blog post!
Camping at Guadalupe River State Park
This trip was reserved by my outdoors group – HTX Outdoors – as a DIY camping trip, so my Dad, Winter and I were joined by another member of the group for the weekend. We reserved campsite #86 in the Wagon Fork Walk-in Campground. Let me just say I cannot recommend this particular site enough. It had shade over the tent pad and next to it. The space at the site was open and large as well.
We were just camping for two nights. So when we arrived on Friday we set up camp and enjoyed dinner and the campfire. The next morning the weather Gods were not in our favor. A small but very powerful thunderstorm made its way directly over Guadalupe River State Park. Rain-flys are great for a light shower or keeping the morning dew out, but this storm was no match. Nearly everything in the tent got drenched. Luckily the storm passed quickly and within 10 minutes it was sunny out. We were able to hang drying lines and let the Texas heat do its job. Everything was dry by lunchtime that day.
A word of warning to anyone camping at Guadalupe River State Park. The raccoons here live up to their bandit reputation. They are EVIL! We packed all of our food away for the nights and secured it well. Several other campsites were not so lucky and the raccoons opened their coolers and food bins. So treat camping here like you would camping in bear country! Lock up your food well and clean up after meals to keep the raccoons away.
Hiking Bauer Unit at Guadalupe River State Park
While all of our camping gear dried in the sun, and before the true heat of the day kicked in, we set off to explore the Bauer Unit of Guadalupe River State Park. We chose to drive to Bauer Unit, however after the fact we realized we could have hiked in by crossing the river. This option would have lead us to explore several different trails we did not hike on this visit.
The Bauer Unit is an area of the park we had not hiked on our previous visit to the park. The trails in this unit did not disappoint! The hiking was gorgeous and very representative of the Texas Hill Country. We explored Hofheinz Trail and the Bauer Trail totaling about 2 miles of hiking.
From Hofheinz Trail, if you make a right and continue to the end of Bauer trail there is a treat for you! An awesome pebble beach in the middle of the Guadalupe River. A great spot to cool off mid hike, which Winter really appreciated! Also on Bauer trail is the Bauer House dating back to 1878. The historic site is protected within the park and still has a working windmill and water well on site.
With limited time before the heat of the day and an hour of hiking time burned thanks to the morning thunderstorm we did not get to hike as much as we would have liked. To avoid the heat we headed back to camp for a quick lunch and to take so well deserved mid-day naps. Afterwards we joined the other HTX Outdoors members and enjoyed the river some more.
Before you go – Guadalupe River State Park
The TPWD site has a lot of information available about Guadalupe River State Park. This is always my recommended place to start researching State Parks. Here are few quick tid-bits about Guadalupe River State Park in the summer and the Bauer Unit of the park:
- The park entrance fee is $7.00 per adult – you can self pay at the Bauer Unit or visit the park headquarters first.
- All the trails are dog friendly (on-leash)
- Bauer Unit is about a 15 minute drive from the park headquarters. Directions are on the park map. In addition to driving, you can also access the Bauer Unit by crossing the river on foot and meeting up with the Little Bluestem Loop Trail via River Access Trail. This is not shown on older park maps. I have marked the crossing location below in google maps.
- On weekends you can get a guided tour of Honey Creek State Natural Area, which is adjacent to the park.
The park is about 4 hours from Houston, north of San Antonio. When we camped in June, the weather was gorgeous and also very very hot! We planned all of our activities around the heat of the day, hiking in the morning and napping in the shade during the hottest part of the day. We also spent plenty of time at the river. For this park I highly recommend supportive hiking shoes, as the trails are rocky and it would be easy to twist an ankle.
If you are hiking with your four legged best friend, be sure they are prepared for the distance you plan to hike, the weather, and bugs! For this park as well, make sure to check their paw pads regular in case of thorns or sharp rocks. Check out some of my other posts about hiking with dogs for more details on this!
Leave no trace
This holds true, especially when hiking with dogs, who are lucky enough to have nature as their never ending restroom! I always carry plenty of baggies to clean up after them, and carry it out since there were not any trash cans along the trail. I have a bag to put all my trash in that I carry in my small day hiking pack. Using a refillable and reusable water bottle instead of using a plastic bottle from the convenience store is a must.
For more hiking and camping check out our blog archives!
again great article Emily. This was a nice weekend.
It was a great time! Definitely a great Texas State Park