Longhorn Cavern + Inks Lake SUP

Saturday I led a day-trip with first-time-guide Sean.  There was supposed to be a third guide on the trip, but he unfortunately decided not to come on the trip.

Having guided this trip twice before, I felt well prepared.  We held the pre-trip on Thursday night and took about 1.5 hours to load all of the gear into a suburban and the old canoe trailer.  Day trips are easier than weekend trips because no food buy is needed.

We opted to meet the participants in front of Gregory Gym at 7:45am on Saturday.  I arrived a bit earlier in order to drive the second Suburban over from its home parking spot and put some ice in the coolers.

Our group (photo from Alexandra Müller's camera)

I met Sean and the 9 participants on the steps in front of Gregory.  After getting signed waivers from everyone, we hit the road.

I drove the suburban towing the trailer.  My car had five participants, three of which were foreign exchange students from Europe.  Everyone in my car chatted happily for the 80 minute drive to Longhorn Cavern State Park.

Once at Longhorn Cavern State Park, we went over to see the old water/observation tower.  Despite only climbing up two stories, we were all surprised when we reached the top and were treated with a nice view over the rolling Hill Country.

Enjoying hill country views from the tower.

We headed to the main building in order to exchange our ticket voucher for tickets on the 10am cave tour ($16/adult, $13 with Texas State Park Pass).

Our guide on this tour was much less eclectic than previous guides, but he also provided some different information.  I thought he tried to sell the other tours at the park a bit too hard - and he also rushed us through the cave at points - but everyone seemed to enjoy the tour overall.  Compared to my previous tours, we saw many more eastern pipistrelle bats today (supposedly due to aftershocks from an earthquake last month in Oklahoma).

Longhorn Cavern present-day entrance.

Inside Longhorn Cavern.

A tiny eastern pipistrelle bat.

Inside Longhorn Cavern.

Longhorn Cavern's Hall of Gems.

The tour ended at 11:50am (20 minutes late according to our guide).  We found a shaded picnic table and sat down for lunch as a group.  We all chatted and shared interesting facts about ourselves - mine was that I'm leaving Austin on June 17, 2017 to become location independent.

After lunch, we drove a short 8 miles to Inks Lake State Park.  I was lucky enough to find space to park the trailer that did not require backing up.  We quickly unloaded the trailer, life jackets, and paddles.  We struggled to figure out how to put the fins on the SUPs until we realized the screwdrivers in the fin bag were indeed critical.

Attempting to put the fins on the SUPs

With this small matter handled, we did a quick introduction talk before hitting the lake.  Sean led the group and I followed the group, helping anyone who seemed to be struggling.

Beautiful day on the lake

We paddled over to Devil's Water Hole, where there were plenty of people relaxing and cliff jumping.  We pulled our SUPs into the woods and swam in the water hole.

Almost to Devil's Water Hole

I ventured to the end of the water hole with four participants.  We wandered up a stream feeding the lake.  We were enjoying the upstream hike and lounging in a small pond until some nearby people told us that they had seen 'a few' water moccasins earlier in that pond.  We quickly exited the pond, and were much more careful walking back down stream.  I'd expect that there are many water moccasins (and other snakes) in the lake and stream, but I don't like hearing that I was swimming where some were seen shortly before.

We paddled back across the lake once the participants were ready to return.  Some participants became tired paddling into the wind, but we eventually all reached the shore.

I handled organizing and securing the paddle boards as the participants carried them to the trailer.  I quickly changed and bought some snacks from the very reasonably priced general store by the lake before we started the drive back to Austin.

I was somewhat surprised that my car stayed awake on the return trip - happily chatting about the day and making plans to do future things together.  We unloaded the trailer when were reached Gregory Gym before saying thanks and good-bye to all of the participants.

Sean and I then dealt with moving the vehicles and trailer back to their weekend parking spots.  I struggled with the trailer mightily.  Once we finally got the trailer parked successfully, we went to the Outdoor Center to return the trip binder, review participant surveys, and fill out our post-trip survey.

All in all, it was an extremely smooth trip.  All of the participants seemed pumped to get out of Austin and have a day outdoors.  Sean was a great person to guide with, and I'm sure he's going to develop into a solid, experienced guide quickly.