Roughing it at Pedernales Falls State Park

One of my church friends, Chung, organized a camping trip opportunity so I hopped on.  So six guys set out to rough it out.  Our destination: Pedernales Falls State Park.  It’s a state park about half hour west of Austin.  Here’s the who:

That’s Yong on the left, Mike in the center, and Ken on the right.

Chung was the driver, I sat in the forward middle (which sucked!) and Walter on the passenger side.

The drive was just shy of four hours from the west side of Houston.  Here’s the group shot.

We camped at the primitive site, which meant no running water or electricity.  And this required about a two-mile hike into the site from the parking lot. Here’s some pictures of the hike into the site.

Chung is hard-core when it comes to nature and roughing it.  He’s from Canada after all!!  :p  But it was Mike’s first time and I hadn’t camped in over 10 years!  Last time was at Grand Canyon back in ’96!  Yikes… That’s Walter in the back and as a seasoned hiker, he hiked slowly and eventually I realized he was doing it deliberately to cover the rear and leaving no one left behind, mainly me.  So I really appreciated that.

Here’s a shot of Mike after his very first tent put up!

And Chung & Walter brought burners (since there was a burn ban in place) for cooking.  Leave it to Chung to bring steak to “rough” it!!  LOL.

Yong had brought cup ramen for dinner!  But one of the best had to be Ken’s choice from REI.  They evidently sell these meals in packets where you just pour hot water in the pouch, shake and then eat!  Awesome idea!  The only downside is the rather high sodium content!!  >.<

Here are some night shots…

Mike with his “head lamp”. And at night, the moon was almost full so we could actually see our path in the dark!

And because we didn’t realize they had no water at the site, after dinner, we hiked back to the parking lot to get more water!  So the first night, we had already hiked about 2 and 1/2 hours!  >.<

Day 2, we decided to hike to the top of Wolf “Mountain”.  Why did I put it in quotes?!  That’s because the top really wasn’t a mountain!

Above picture is a site where someone USED to live in!  Wow… now, THAT’s roughing it!!  After we had snack lunch at the “top”, we hiked back down and set out.  However, we did stop by the falls…

And to finish the day, we stopped by the good ol’ BBQ at the Salt Lick BBQ for late lunch/early dinner!  If you are ever near the area, you should definitely check it out!!

All in all, as sore as I am, I really enjoyed the time.  I had needed to get away from work and the busy craziness of life to get released from it all.  Additionally, I had great time getting to know Walter, catch up with Yong, and just chuckle at Chung and Mike.  I wish Ken would walk slower and get to know us but he was all about getting through the hike.  It definitely was a great bonding experience overall.  I am just scared to go again with Chung next time though… since he keeps on saying that he won’t be as “lenient” next time.