Pedernales Falls - Falls Trail Log Entries

Awesome Place!
User: Lone_Star - 5/10/2013  [View Log Page]
Rating: Difficulty: Solitude:
Distance: 9.90 Miles Duration: 4 hours, 36 minutes

I visited Pedernales Falls as a part of a group event and this state park served as our weekend base camp.  I was the first to arrive, so I decided to hike the trail down near the falls.  My intent was to cover all of the trails, but when I got down to the Pedernales River, I found it so scenic that my hike turned into a photography expedition.

I took an informal/unnamed trail along the river towards the falls and, when I arrived at the falls, walked all over the rocks where the water pools and rivers of water flow through curvy, carved out channels.

My solo hike (reflected by the .GPX file) represents only 3.9 miles of the 9.9 total miles.

When the others arrived in the evening, I told some people how impressed I was with the beauty of the falls, so several of them begged me around midnight to take them on a night hike down to the falls.  We walked from base camp down the main road to the falls, but it was so dark you couldn't really see the water from the observation points, but you could hear it.  We took one of the rocky trails down to the falls, but it was difficult to navigate in the dark with nothing but flashlights, so we decided to hike back.  On the way back, we took a wrong turn down the road that leads to the picnic area before we realized our mistake.  We didn't get back into base camp until 2:30am.  Our night hike represents the other 6 miles of the 9.9 total miles.

One other nice thing about this park is, at night, you can see fireflies flying around.  I haven't them for quite some time, so it was nice to see these bioluminescent insects again.

User: Daniel N - 4/11/2010  [View Log Page]
Rating: Difficulty: Solitude:
Distance: 2.50 Miles Duration: N/A

User: DBrown - 3/13/2010  [View Log Page]
Rating: Difficulty: Solitude:
Distance: 5.00 Miles Duration: N/A

started at the swimming parking area. Down the stairs and picked up an unmarked trail following the southern side of the river. The trail weaves between the flood bank and the immediate bank of the river with frequent ups and downs as well as a few tributary stream crossings. Trammel Crossing (while marked on the map) is less obvious than you'd expect. It looks like a single rapid spanning the width of the river and you have to wade across. the 4 mile loop that it leads to is nice but a little boring. No real elevation gains once you reach the top of the hill and the scenery stays pretty much the same thoughout. If you follow the unmarked trail on the southern side of the river past Trammel Crossing I recommend headin up Mescal Creek. It's a long series of small waterfalls and cascades and is a ton of fun to climb up and around in.

Rocky, Beautiful
User: tjbustem - 2/21/2009  [View Log Page]
Rating: Difficulty: Solitude:
Distance: 0.75 Mile Duration: 45 minutes

This trail takes you down to the falls which are very spectacular.  It's well used so expect others to be there.  There are some huge rocks in the falls area which are great for photos.

Wandering the rocks
User: Riff Raff - 8/16/2008  [View Log Page]
Rating: Difficulty: Solitude:
Distance: 1.00 Mile Duration: 1 hour

It's really easy to spend hours here just wandering around the rocks all around the falls area.  Lovely, beautiful place.  It's fun figuring out the puzzle at times of how to get around certain places.  Or I suppose you could just take it easy and stay at the overlook area, but where's the fun in that?

A Fun Short Hike
User: mrhackerott - 4/5/2008  [View Log Page]
Rating: Difficulty: Solitude:
Distance: 1.00 Mile Duration: 1 hour, 30 minutes

Very rocky, not much of a trail...
User: msuda - 1/7/2007  [View Log Page]
Rating: Difficulty: Solitude:
Distance: 1.00 Mile Duration: 1 minute
Trail is VERY short then just vanishes. Most people there keep going without the trail and walk around the rocky area exploring the varios pools of water left by the river. When I was here the river was VERY LOW> I t was still only January so maybe it gets higher in the spring?

Fun rock scrambling!
User: Riff Raff - 5/20/2006  [View Log Page]
Rating: Difficulty: Solitude:
Distance: 1.50 Miles Duration: N/A
I'd been here once before with my parents, but that was an awfully long time ago. The actual trail is just the beginning here, really. Once you make it down to the falls, you can follow the river up or down to other falls if you don't mind doing a bit of rock scrambling. Only problem sometimes when doing that is finding a path heading back...:-) At any rate, it's an extremely lovely area and I was glad I went here first since I don't think I would have had enough energy for walking around all the rocks later in the day. There are a lot of people around this area though for obvious reasons, so if you need solitude head elsewhere.

Beautiful
User: LVX - 10/15/2005  [View Log Page]
Rating: Difficulty: Solitude:
Distance: 4.00 Miles Duration: N/A
We walked a couple of miles upriver to extend the hike. Very nice day.

User: AshleyNicole - 5/23/2005  [View Log Page]
Rating: Difficulty: Solitude:
Distance: 1.00 Mile Duration: N/A
The heat probably drove most people away, there wasn't anyone in sight when we went to the falls. They're awesome!

Very few People
User: maxrebo - 11/22/2002  [View Log Page]
Rating: N/A Difficulty: Solitude:
Distance: 4.00 Miles Duration: N/A
Perfect time of year to go

Impressive site
User: Austin Explorer - 4/11/2002  [View Log Page]
Rating: Difficulty: Solitude:
Distance: 0.75 Mile Duration: N/A
Central Texas is not known for great waterfalls, but this is one of them. It's actually more of a water slope, but the effect is much the same. The short trail leading to the falls is extremely busy on nice days. A solitude rating of 0 might have applied here.