McKinney Falls State Park

The name McKinney Falls State Park is what brought me to this place, on the hope of seeing waterfalls.  Turns out there are two of them in the park, known as Upper McKinney Falls & Lower McKinney Falls.  Upper McKinney Falls was kind of a bummer.  There’s no hike to get to it, you just park in one of the little lots and you’re there.  What really pissed me off was finding traffic cones on the fall itself, and a film crew making some sort of show.  This is the second time recently that I’ve encountered a film crew at a waterfall I’m trying to see in “nature.”  I’d only been near the falls for but a moment when a producer came rushing toward me trying to tactfully get me to leave.  That’s not a good experience.  And for what you might ask?  A low volume fall that was only a few feet high along “Onion Creek.”  I’m sure there are heavy water volumes that happen here seasonally, but this was Fall, and there wasn’t enough rain to wash the cast and crew away much to my dismay.

Lower McKinney Falls was a little more satisfying because I got to hike out to it on the “Homestead Trail”, and even though it shared the same low flow from Onion Creek as the upper falls, it was shaped nicely with limestone ledges and a pool below.  In fact I rather enjoyed the low volume because it allowed for exploring the fall itself in detail, finding little pools with minnows trapped in them and whatnot.  Hiking out this way also allows you to continue the trail and get a real hike in while exploring the remains of a grist mill and part of the El Camino Real de los Tejas, a historic 2500 mile “road” from Mexico to Lousiana that crosses over Onion Creek here.

Another perk of the trails here is the Rock Shelter Trail takes you into a prehistoric rock shelter.  If you were to do all of the trails here you could certainly occupy yourself for a full day wandering.

All that said, I hated my stay there for camping purposes.  McKinney Falls State Park became a cautionary tale about Texas State Parks, as I’ll explain. The choice of McKinney Falls State Park became a thing when I needed availability for a few nights in a row, rather spontaneously.  I’ve had very little problems in other states that I’m more familiar with when it comes to reservations, but it seems like any park that’s even remotely popular in Texas gets booked well in advance, especially around the weekends.  I’d wanted to stay at Pedernales Falls State Park, but available reservations were non existent when I tried to book less than a week in advance.  I’d come to find out after talking to staff at multiple state parks in Texas that some of these places are booked months in advance.  But back to the experience here, I didn’t care, I just wanted a park that had “falls” in the name, so this was it.

When I arrived at McKinney Falls State Park the lady at the gate said she was writing the gate code on my park pass so I could “come back late after partying in Austin.”  That was a huge red flag.  At the time I knew I was near Austin, TX.  But realistically this park is in it, and I guess it is the party park or something?  I was kind of offended, because I go to state parks to get away from cities and certainly not to associate with partying.  So again, red flag #1.

Red flag #2 was mere moments later when I went into the park store to buy a patch and magnet since I collect those.  Another lady who was working the cashier position in there told me that “nothing is ever normal at McKinney.”  Like what the hell?

I proceeded to my camp site, and to be fair I’d only had a single option for which site I could get into due to all the bookings, so I’m not going to complain about it much.  But I learned they have a satellite style bathroom system there in the campground, which was Red flag #3 and miserable to cope with.  Usually I stay near restrooms if I can help it, and most parks I’ve been to have them fairly close to all sites.  The way this worked was my site was about as far from the restroom as possible, and that’s fine, last come, last choice and all.  But the reason I say “satellite style” is because the restroom even remotely near me was just a simple bathroom with no showers.  Imagine if you will a main bathroom way up by the front of the campground that has the only showers, and just lesser bathrooms elsewhere.  Result:  long walks to my lesser bathroom, mandatory car rides to the bathroom with a shower.  That sucks.

Red flag #4 was the experience with Upper McKinney Falls having a film crew shooing me away, as detailed above.

Red flag #5 is that you can’t gather firewood.  To be fair I explored several parks in Texas this trip and found none of them allow it, perhaps for valid reasons.  Instead at McKinney they have sort of a firewood vending machine.  Which was empty and accepts automated payments only via a credit card device.

Red flag #6 was all freaking night long you can hear city traffic from Austin, TX in the background.  This isn’t camping in nature.  This is camping at the edge of a city.  A bummer.

Red flag #7 was the showering experience.  Imagine near freezing weather, no functional heater inside the bathroom, and kind of iffy water pressure.

Normally when I pack up and leave a park I feel remorse, but in this case I smiled and got the hell out.  Other details – there wasn’t any park WiFi but cell service was easy to be had likely due to the proximity to Austin.  Campers around me were generally noisy, had dogs and there was a preference toward RVs and other vehicles to camp in, instead of the tent life that I live currently.

Address:  5808 McKinney Falls Pkwy, Austin, TX 78744

Here’s a park map.