JAN 18

Middle of winter should make for a good camping trip, right? Right?!? Ted, Dale and myself picked Lake Somerville because we knew Ted would have the possibility to catch some fish and it was close to Austin.  This trip started the same as all the others: on a Friday with chances of rain.  I was again coming directly from LA and that put us in a time pinch.  It had been getting dark shortly after 5pm and we didn't show up to the park until 4:30pm.

When we got to the park, we learned that they open it up to duck hunting every year, on the week we decided to show up.  Also, the spot we wanted to camp was a six mile hike, but the park ranger told us of a way to shorten the trek to 1.5 miles.  There was a back road that took you to an alternate parking spot and it involved lots of mud.  This was perfect for Dale since he got a chance to test out his brand new four door Jeep Wrangler.  If we would have been in any other vehicle, we probably would have had to do the six miles or risk getting stuck in the mud.

Once we got to the parking spot, it was cold and wet.  We started off about half a mile down the trail when we realized we went the wrong way.  We got back on course and quickly made it to the camp area.  There were four spots to camp so we surveyed each and picked the best one.  We tried to get a fire going, but it was too cold and wet to do much of anything, so we hung out in the tent and played cards. 

The next day, we did a little hiking and saw some of the ducks the hunters were trying to kill.  Poor duckies.  We also came across a group of hogs, about 10 adults and 20 babies.  I was able to get about 20 feet away from the younger ones before they darted for the trees.  I probably should be thankful the parents didn't try and charge me, as I hear they can get pretty mean.

When we got back to the camp site, Ted had a nice fire going.  We warmed ourselves next to the fire and took a nice nap.  When we woke up, we went for another hike while Ted watched the fire.  We evidently took longer than we planned and on our way back, we came across Ted at the fishing spot trying to catch some dinner for himself and Dale.  Unfortunately for them, that never happened.  There was another guy that was fishing that managed to catch a dozen fish.  Since Ted guaranteed that if there were fish, he would catch them, I concluded that the other fisherman must have caught every last fish in that river and left nothing for Ted.  That bastard!

That night proved to be unbearably cold.  We tried to warm ourselves by the fire but only ended up burning our clothing (including one of my gloves, both of Dale's gloves, Dale's sleeping bag, and my hoodie).  When we woke up in the morning, Ted's compass/thermostat told us that it was 28 degrees inside the tent.  We were tired of shivering so we packed up and got the hell out.

Type: Out-and-back
Trailhead: Google
Trail Map: link

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