I found myself at Pedernales Falls State Park on a quest to see the namesake Pedernales Falls. What I found, was not what I expected, but I enjoy it a lot regardless. So if you’ve stumbled across this post and you’re looking to know about Pedernales Falls, please know that you’re going to get a very different experience based on the amount of moisture in the region. My visit was in Fall, during a dry spell. What could have been a waterfall, or really a huge slope style fall spanning hundreds of feet wide was reduced to a relatively minor flow finding deep channels in highly worn rock. There must be times when you can’t go walk around the rocks and explore, but when the water is low, you can get out there and climb all over, which I did, and there’s a well worn path from low flow times full of rushing water, an amazing amount of fish, and more. Here’s a bunch of pictures I took crawling around the “falls.” Note how the water has carved channels and there are stable pools, all really pretty.
All of what you see above contains rocks to hop around, little turns and bends, pools with frogs, fish such as bass, sunfish, catfish and bluegill in the deeper spots, and you can’t take it in from any one vantage point. Long story short, there was no traditional waterfall to be had, but the falls area as a whole was super neat to explore. Here’s some additional information about fishing at Pedernales Falls and of course the park map!
There’s more to be seen than Pedernales Falls at the park though, which I didn’t realize before showing up. For the waterfall hunter type like myself there’s Twin Falls. I took the Twin Falls Nature Trail which is only 0.47 miles long one way to this fall. It turned out to lead to an observation deck over a pool of water and more of what I’d label as a seep instead of a fall. I also did the park’s bird blind, which was super cool even if you’re not a bird person because you walk up on a fence that warns you to walk in silently past a gate and there’s a warning about checking for snakes before you sit down at a blind. And sure enough several bird species were there, pretty neat. I did not do much additional hiking at Pedernales but based on the map there are many miles of viable hikes, as well as some swimming areas.
What really captivated me however was the camping. I was unfortunately staying at the other waterfall named park (McKinney Falls State Park) instead of here, due to this park being booked up well in advance of my spontaneous arrival. But check out this campsite shown below. Cactus, a picnic shelter, open space to put a tent in. That’s awesome! The pictured site was right next to where the Twin Falls Nature Trail started and there were bits of scat from creatures that had fed on prickly pear all over the place, so wildlife sightings must be great there. I can totally imagine camping for a few days and wandering most of their trail system quite contentedly. This park is even remote enough that you’d feel like you were really out in the wild. Fair warning, like a lot of Texas state parks in this region I noticed signs saying you can’t scavenge firewood, so expect to find an alternative if you want a fire.
Address: 2585 Park Rd 6026, Johnson City, TX 78636
