4 Seasons of Winter - Camping at Pace Bend Park

Pace Bend Park is located in the Texas Hill Country north of Austin, TX, on Lake Travis about 3 hours from Houston. This park is not a Texas State Park, though many people think that it is. The park is operated by Travis County and offers spectacular views over Lake Travis, and part of the Colorado River. It provides an easy going feel for camping and has about 15 miles of hiking and biking trails in the parks interior. The park was a great place to kick off the 2018-2019 camping season for Texas. Additionally, it was the first camping and hiking trip I took with Winter! It was definitely a milestone moment for her. To learn more about camping with dogs, check out my post series here.

Pace Bend Park, September 2018. Taylor Cove Primitive Camp Ground at Sunset

Camping

We chose to camp in the primitive sites on the west side of Pace Bend Bark. Taylor Cove, our site, offers gorgeous cliff views and a bit more privacy than the east side of the park. The primitive camp sites all have a fire pit and grills for cooking, which we did plenty of!

The trip was great to get back into the groove of camping, and determine what I really needed camping with a dog. Winter and I camped for 2 nights, the first of which was gorgeous! We sat out by the fire late into the night and got to enjoy some star gazing and great conversation with others in our group before calling it a night.

The second night of camping was a bit more rough. During the day a Texas sized thunder storm rolled through and dumped a few inches of rain on us. No big deal… that’s what a rain fly and tarp are for. WRONG. The way the camp sites are set up, water pooled in the flat areas where our tents were set up. Along with a few others, my tent got a little water in it and some of my gear got wet. This made for a not so fun second night of camping.

Hiking

If I am being honest, I don’t know exactly which trails in the park we hiked. I can tell you a group of us spent about 4 hours hiking and completed approximately 7 miles of trails. We started from the trail head closest to Taylor Cove and headed south. Generally, we followed the trails in a wide loop, catching portions of Pack Trail and Wookiee Way, eventually exiting at the trail head between Camp Texlake and Highland Lakes Camp. We didn’t run into too much wildlife in the park, but the trails were challenging at in some areas. I highly recommend good hiking shoes with ankle support as the trails were rocky.

Happy hiking pup
Got just a little hot when the sun came out
“Mom, I want some water”

The 7 miles got to be a bit much for Winter when the sun started to come out. Luckily we got to go back to camp and enjoyed the lake with a little swimming and ate lunch. We also got to nap in the shade of all the trees at our camp site!

Trail and Park map from Travis County Parks

Before You Go

Cliff view from the campsite at Taylor Cove, making our way down to do some swimming.

Travis County Parks maintains a website for Pace Bend Park (here) where you can make reservations for the improved camp sites. The park only offers 20 of these, and they are the only campsites that include showers. They offer 400 primitive sites on a first come first serve basis. The primitive sites are all located conveniently to allow for car camping, and there are compost toilets at every other cove. The bulk water station is located on the east side of the park, which from our camp site was about 3 miles.

There is a park fee of $15 per vehicle for the primitive camping, and day use is $10. One of the most popular activities at the park is boating. There are 2 boat ramps in the park if you are lucky enough to own your own boat.

Leave No Trace

This is so important when camping, not only for the environment, but also to prevent wildlife from coming into campsites for food. Luckily, at Pace Bend Park there are not bears to worry about, though there are plenty of raccoons, opossums, skunks, etc. It is really important to clean up effectively after every meal, and never leave food or trash out overnight.

Additionally, when camping with dogs, who are lucky enough to have nature restroom, it is important to make sure they are not relieving themselves in the campsite! This will attract other animals, and also can cause undesired smells. Always make sure to bring plenty of baggies to clean up after them. Check out my series on Camping with Dogs here!

Using a refillable and reusable water bottle or bladder instead of using a plastic bottle from the convenience store is a must.

Check out more hiking and camping posts on the outdoors page!