Gene Hikes the Appalachian Trail

Tag: austin

  • Around ACC Highland

    As those of you who are frequent readers of this blog already know (both of you), I am a proponent and aficionado of free, public, outdoor fitness areas. I cannot pass up an opportunity to highlight the area around ACC Highland because it not only includes two such locations but also a short trail that dovetails into a longer trail for anyone interested. There is a lot in the area for anyone looking for a nice quick workout or hike during a lunch break or lazy weekend morning.

    ACC Highland is one of the campuses of Austin Community College. This particular one is housed in what used to be Highland Mall. The region used to be one of the higher parts of the city so there are a lot of place and street names that play on it. Crestview neighborhood, Twin Crest and Eastcrest Drives nearby. Highland Mall opened in 1971 and served the community for over forty years before closing in 2015. From there the building was scooped up by ACC and transformed into the shiny collegiate location of today.

    With as overwhelmingly hot as it gets in Austin pretty much all the time between March and November, you really need to fumble the bag to screw up an air conditioned, indoor shopping mall. That place should have printed money forever and ever.

    Shockingly, racism was one of the big reasons it failed. Highland Mall was in a … what’s the euphemism … “racially diverse” part of Austin and somehow hated the fact that people other than rich whites wanted to shop there. During the Texas Relays (a yearly event around Easter that brings together the best amateur and professional track and field athletes in the state) even more, uh … “urban” youth wanted to shop there. And the pearl clutching began in earnest. Highland Mall faded into irrelevance years before the doors closed for good.

    ACC Highland is shiny and new and all that stuff. A different kind of blog would continue to talk about how great the interior looks and all the wonderful things you can do there. This is not that kind of blog; we are staying outside.

    We begin on campus about a block from Airport Boulevard at the corner of Highland Mall Boulevard and Highland Campus Drive. So named in case you ever happen to forget that you are near ACC Highland for some reason. Here in front of a new apartment building complex is the first outdoor fitness station. This one is robust and includes pullup bars, step platforms of varying heights, dip station, pushup bar, an ab exercise spot, and a lower back extension. I can also proudly report that the water fountain works as well.

    If you are looking for something else to do at this location instead of workout, there is also an outdoor ping pong table. Unlock your inner Marty Supreme if you dare to bring paddles and a ball.

    A couple blocks east along Highland Mall Blvd you’ll reach the beginning of the 1.25 mile Highland Trail. It goes roughly along the perimeter of the ACC Highland footprint. It goes along behind some buildings and passes by a large and open parking lot.

    The parking lot looks like it would be a great place to get sprinting work in. I used to do a lot of sprinting way back before I became old and decrepit. My go-to sprint workout didn’t have a cool name but it always got me tuckered out. All you need to do it is a large open spot (like a parking lot or soccer field) and a way to roughly measure off distances. Go as hard as you can and try not to rest more than a couple minutes between any two sprints.

    • 1/4 to 1/2 mile warmup
    • ten 100-yard sprints
    • eight 80-yard sprints
    • six 60-yard sprints
    • four 40-yard sprints
    • 1/4 to 1/2 mile cooldown

    Just past the parking lot is the second outdoor fitness station. This one is older and has fewer spots in which to workout. It has some pullup bars and pushup bars with a couple of inclined benches for abdominal work. The water fountain here works too. However, I also need to mention that there is zero shade over either fitness area so don’t even think about using them this time of year except for right after dawn or before sunset.

    Highland Trail continues behind another apartment complex (you see, nothing gets built in Austin except apartment buildings and things owned by Elon Musk and the occasional restaurant) and meets up with the Red Line Parkway along Airport Boulevard. The Red Line Parkway is still in development but it is hoped to ultimately become a 32 mile stretch going all the way from Leander to downtown Austin. Anyone in the local area that is interested in hearing more should come to the State of the Parkway presentation at the Central Library on August 26th. Tell them Gene sent you.

    Eventually you come upon Fontaine Plaza on Airport. It is like a super miniature version of Central Park. The plaza and the street that runs next to it are both named for Jacob Fontaine. He was a former slave who became an influential pastor, merchant, and journalist in Austin during Reconstruction. He also played a large part in helping to get UT established in Austin. Hook ’em.

    Those purple poles on the plaza are part of a light art project that is supposed to resemble bats in flight. I should mention here for those of you that are unaware, ACC teams are called the Riverbats in honor of the bats that live downtown.

    From Fontaine Plaza you can walk a short distance back to the first fitness station or complete the 1.25 mile loop of Highland Trail. Like I said at the start, this is a great area to kill an hour or so and get a good sweat on. You really don’t need to bring anything with you except a desire to explore. And your house keys, don’t forget those or you’ll have trouble getting inside when you get home.

  • North Walnut Creek Trail

    So I threw the old backpack on again and headed out to North Walnut Creek Trail, which you should have been able to figure out from the title. This is the northern portion of the Walnut Creek Trail System, a not-yet-completed trail which will extend 19 miles across northern and eastern Austin when finished. I picked up the trail on Lamar Boulevard just north of Oakbrook and four miles from Balcones District Park. This made for a nice eight mile round trip, and since it took me a few miles to get to my origin this wound up being 11 or 12 total miles of hike.

    This entire trail was paved and very wide, easily accommodating walkers, bikers, strollers, and even a maintenance pickup truck. I probably should have taken a picture of the truck, but I didn’t so you’ll just have to trust me.

    Not long after I started I came upon Walnut Creek Metro Park, the first of three trailheads on my route. With ample parking, a gated pool, and a kids’ play area the location seemed like a good place to chillax for a while but I quickly sped through.

    Along this trail there were lots of unpaved side trails that promised adventure. Trails with exciting names like Log Loops Trail and Ski Slope Trail. However I was unusually focused on completing the main hike and not on doing any side quests. I did see lots of mountain bikers going back and forth between the trails so they are obviously very popular.

    The next significant marker I came across was Gracywoods Neighborhood Park Trail. I did do a small detour thinking there would be a nice neighborhood park nearby. Nope, I was dead wrong. The only thing I saw on the trail was the backs of some apartment buildings. I did come across a meadow with some cool flowers. I know I must be spending more time outside than usual when I use “cool flowers” in a sentence without a hint of irony or sarcasm.

    These flowers are known as gaillardia, and they bloom pretty ubiquitously in central Texas. Actually, all across Texas. They are bright and low maintenance and can handle hot weather. It rained way more than usual in April so these and other flowers have been shooting up all over the place. The cloudy weather lingered during my hike, which explains the grey skies in all my pictures.

    Once I got back on the main trail I was treated to the best mile or so of the day. The walkway went through a wooded area that was shielded from any urban noises and became like a secluded country trail. I passed by some young ladies hanging out in a gazebo and smoking reefer. Or is it “the reefer”? This was a great stroll and it saddened me immensely when I came upon Gracywoods Trailhead, the second of three trailheads, at Metric Avenue.

    Metric Avenue, but they still measure speed in mph

    Gracywoods Trailhead had its own play area. I gave everything a try but I honestly have to give it low marks. The swings were too low and the slides were too narrow. I don’t think anyone over the age of ten would enjoy playing there. Zero of ten stars. The benches did work though, which is always a plus.

    The next big landmark on the way to the end was crossing underneath MoPac. I took a picture because there was one of those hideous Cybertrucks at the intersection. MoPac is one of the main roads north-south in Austin. It has express lanes that can be accessed if you pay a toll. And by “express” I just mean everyone in those lanes likes to “express” themselves by flipping you the bird or honking repeatedly like a siren.

    When I first moved to Austin the second question I asked my friends was why is it called MoPac. The answer is because the road follows roughly the same path as the old Missouri Pacific Railway. By the way, the first question I asked was why is everything freaking thing named after Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar? The answer: because he was a bad ass soldier, politician, and poet. He was also a bigoted racist who did more to harm the Native American cause than almost any other Texan, which also must be mentioned.

    From MoPac on to the third and final trailhead was not much to write home about. It wasn’t bad, just nothing worthy of addition to a blog. The trail got noticeably steep for the last half mile or so. Then I finally reached the third trailhead at Balcones District park.

    Balcones District Park is a spacious open area with clean, working toilets and multiple covered benches where you can sit or host a birthday party. And they also had a play area that I would not recommend to anyone old enough to have hair on their chest. They also had basketball courts and working water fountains. This park is a place where you can go and spend a good half a day easily. Cue a small gallery.

    I hung out there for about a half hour before turning around to head back. Not much happened on the return trip until I got back to almost the beginning. This time I decided to take one of those beaten trails near Walnut Creek Metro Park. I chose one called Powerline Hill.

    I hoped it would be a pleasant, brief, uphill climb that would reward me with a panoramic view of part of the city. I was right about the short climb part. The view wound up just being a bunch of power lines. Oh, and a person on a mountain bike who zoomed past me on the ascent.

    Not shown: a fourth power line just off to the right

    And then I went back down and finished up. And there was much rejoicing.

  • High Rollin

    So I’m going to do a change of pace here and post something that has nothing to do with hiking or fitness or anything of the sort. It’s allowed; I can do that. I can talk about anything I want because this is my fucking blog. I can also swear casually.

    This past Saturday I went to my first MLS game, Austin FC versus the Houston Dynamo. I had never been to a game here in Austin despite the team existing since 2021 largely for two reasons. One, I feel like MLS is equivalent to third-tier European football, which is something I have never paid to watch either. Two, I have a long-standing, entirely one-sided feud with Austin FC’s principal owner Anthony Precourt.

    Precourt is the sort of billionaire asshole sports owner (BASO) that did everything he could to ruin the Columbus MLS franchise before finally getting an expansion team in Austin. Precourt also happens to be one of those private equity dudes who seems incapable of earning money except by sucking all of the joy out of all of the small things that little people like me enjoy.

    All of that said, if the Austin MLS team was an MLB or NFL team instead I’d happily support them. The sad truth is that every BASO is a douchebag. It’s just that if you are passionate enough about the team they own you’ll look the other way until they do something so bad even their fellow BASOs cannot justify it. Jerry Richardson was the founding owner of my beloved Carolina Panthers. He was a douchebag, the sort of douchebag who puts a giant statue of himself in front of the team’s stadium. That alone was not a fireable offense as a BASO. What was fireable was being a racist, sexist piece of shit.

    Who am I kidding? That alone is not enough. The problem is that Richardson was so racist and sexist that there had to be an investigation. The results of which were so bad they made him sell the team. That is how you get fired as a BASO. Donald Sterling was a known shit sandwich but didn’t get booted from the NBA until they caught him on tape being a racist cocksucker. As long as it wasn’t on tape there was enough plausible deniability to look the other way. Once everything became public record he became expendable. See also, Daniel Snyder.

    Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs has been a mean-spirited skinflint and outright spiteful to the very fans that feed his bottom line for as long as he has run the team, but he is still a proud BASO. The Bruins are my NHL team of choice because I am a hypocrite and follow Boston despite Jacobs while loathing Austin FC because of Precourt.

    Well anyway this post is not about why every BASO is a fundamentally bad person, it is about my trip to the game. I got a free ticket from a friend who has seats in an unlimited food and drinks section at picturesque Q2 Stadium. He has two season tickets to this area. He had one free ticket because someone else wasn’t able to go. Why? Don’t know, don’t care.

    Now I’ve known this guy since college and I knew he was doing well financially, but I did not know he was doing WELL, if you know what I mean. After graduation he moved to Austin to attend grad school at UT. He was living the life of a poor college student during this time.

    I remember when the Chicago Whie Sox (my team; don’t get me started on Jerry Reinsdorf’s qualifications as a BASO) faced the Houston Astros (his team; he grew up in Houston) in the 2005 World Series we made a friendly wager. I wanted to do $50 but he said that was too rich for him so we did $20 instead. Chicago swept that World Series and I used the $20 to buy a Pale Hose cap with the World Series logo. This was back when $20 could buy a nice fitted baseball cap that now costs about $45 and is sewn together by the lowest bidder that Fanatics can find. I still own that cap even though the bill is literally disintegrating. I swore I’d wear it until we make another World Series and I can replace it. Hopefully Murakami and Montgomery and the boys punch way above their weight soon.

    The point, though, is that he couldn’t put $50 on his favorite team twenty years ago and now he is tossing fistfuls of cash at cushy seats in a swanky stadium. He also lives in a nice house in a gated community in West Austin with an 80″ television. I’m happy for him, and he is now my “rich friend”.

    So we get to the stadium ninety minutes before kickoff because that is when the gates open. Outside they are giving away free cans of Dr Pepper Creamy Coconut, which tastes just like a liquid Mounds bar. First thing we do once we get inside is head for the unlimited food area. I had some street tacos with sumac onions and tahini sauce. Then I got a Karbach Love Street to wash it all down.

    Later on, still before kickoff, I had a smash patty burger with fries, and a serving of pita chips with a whipped feta dip.

    Come kickoff we head down to the seats which are so close to the pitch I am legitimately concerned that I may get hit by an errant free kick. We get to those seats while both two-fisting beers that we sucked down until halftime.

    one fistful of beer

    Second half included more food and beers and a piece of orange olive oil cake. I’d never heard of olive oil cake before that night but I wish I had because it tasted the same way everything else did. Awesomely awesome.

    Oh yeah, and the team actually won 2-0. And they shot like a million fireworks off. And then I went back to my decidedly non-glamorous life where the food and drink is nether “unlimited” nor “delicious” nor even “passably mediocre”. But for one night I got to live like a damn hell ass king thanks to my rich friend. I have not been converted into a fan of Austin FC or Anthony Precourt just yet, but enough more nights like Saturday may change that.

  • Shoal Creek Trail

    I threw on the backpack with 25 pounds in it and went for a round trip on Shoal Creek Trail. Shoal Creek Trail goes from water’s edge of Lady Bird Lake north to 38th Street. It runs roughly parallel to Lamar Blvd and is 3.75 miles each way, so a 7.5 mile round trip. I started from the 38th Street end, which is fairly close to a Spec’s liquor store. That Spec’s used to be a Randalls supermarket. I love HEB as much as any other Texan, but I also love Randalls and since this one and the one near Arboretum closed I can’t get my fix anywhere. Enough whining about retail stores though, let’s start the trail.

    The first sign you’ll encounter at 38th Street

    A short ways in (0.15 miles, give or take) I came upon Seiders Springs. The biggest features of that location are the Seiders Oaks. Below you will see a picture of one of them, just behind a sign reminding people not to have their dogs off leash. You see those signs everywhere on the trail. Or rather, I see them everywhere. Judging by the amount of dogs running around off leash that day I would assume all of these signs are invisible to dog owners.

    To the left of that dog sign is a green obelisk. These things are all over the trail as markers and tell you which way to continue to get to Lady Bird Lake. Except they all say “To Town Lake”. When Longhorn Dam was built on the Colorado River (not that Colorado River) in Austin, the lake it created was called Town Lake. In 2007 it was renamed to be Lady Bird Lake after the former first lady. Most native Austinites over 40 and/or people who moved here in the early 2000s still call it Town Lake and so do these obelisks.

    Back to Seiders Springs. It is named for Edward Seiders (pronounced “Cedars”) who moved to the area along with his friend Gideon White. He lived in the area and was a prominent businessman in the mid-1800s. It also happens to be the site of a particularly gruesome event in 1842. Gideon White was overtaken by Indians and killed on October 25. Later, White’s daughter would marry Edward Seiders.

    Moving south a short distance from there I found a rest area with benches and working water fountains. Can never have enough of either of those.

    At Lamar & 31st Street was the only confusing part of the trail. While most of the trail is its own thing, just before this intersection it merges with the bike lane on Shoal Creek Blvd. The turn at Lamar to go south doesn’t have any signage; you just sort of need to know that is where you go to pick up the trail again.

    South of 31st Street I walked past some really interesting outcroppings of rocks. I am no geologist, so I can’t tell if it is Del Rio Claystone or Buda Limestone or something else. I felt like Indiana Jones while I walked past it, so that’s good for something and I wanted to share it.

    At 29th Street there is some wooden exercise equipment. A set of pull-up bars, a waist high bar, and some benches for sit-ups. I had to bang out a dozen or so pull-ups because I’m so manly. Therefore I can proudly say that everything is nice and sturdy even though it might look old and dangerous.

    The next landmark on the trip southward was Pease Park. It is named so because the land was gifted to the city in 1875 by Elisah Pease, the fifth and thirteenth Governor of Texas. The interesting thing about his time in the Governor’s office is that his interregnum was only from 1857 to 1867. In that time there were seven different Governors. This was during the Civil War, so Texas was going through some shit. And going through Governors like shit through a goose.

    In Pease Park there is a memorial to victims of AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) with symbolic red flags that line the trail. Those flags are left by the trail and then moved out to line the Mile of Silence for the Hill Country Ride for AIDS, which happens to be this weekend.

    Anyway, Pease Park is everything you’d expect from a public park. Green, lots of stuff to do. Expansive, clean, working public toilets. And even more exercise equipment, metallic instead of wooden. Play areas for kids and water fountains shooting out of the ground. There is a cottage too and all sorts of stuff. Here is another gallery.

    At this point I was only 1.25 miles from the lake.

    Close enough to get a good shot of the tall buildings downtown.

    Your definition of “good shot” may not be the same as mine.

    The next interesting things were a skate park and a football field at House Park Plaza. I saw a few people hanging out and working on moves at the skate park. However I decided not to capture them in my picture, so now I’m not sure if anyone will believe me.

    House Park is a shared football field that lots of teams in AISD (Austin Independent School District) use. The Austin Sol ultimate frisbee team also play there. I used to be pretty good at ultimate frisbee. By which I mean I could throw a forehand and a backhand and the occasional hammer.

    Also, more tall buildings.

    From there to the water’s edge was a fairly straightforward walk. Because the trail goes right through the center of downtown most of the final mile is just walking alongside buildings. I did pass by a neighborhood garden and a wildflower meadow.

    Right as you reach the end there is the Central Library. The building is still fairly new and shiny. I miss the old library which was about a mile from the edge of the water. I loved it because it was a boxy building that looked the way a library should. This new Central Library is a happening place where people go to vibe and hang out. I prefer a library where you go to check out books and avoid eye contact with one another.

    The central library. This does not spark joy.

    And from there only a few hundred feet to Lady Bird Lake. I don’t know if the person in my picture was able to catch any fish.

    There is a plaque at the end, in case you can’t figure it out from the fact that there is a giant ass lake there.

    The trip back to 38th Street was fairly uneventful. I admit that I was physically and mentally spent, and once I got back home I did nothing but watch baseball in the dark. I do want to call out that there is a sign at 31st Street going north that tells you exactly where to go, so the issue I mentioned earlier is exclusively a southbound problem.

    I also wanted to call out the fact that there are quite a few underpasses along the Shoal Creek Trail. Only one of them actually has lights, and that was the one at West Sixth Street.

    It is pretty easy to find yourself in a bad situation at night in a big city so I would think more underpasses should be lit. It shouldn’t cost that much, right? Unless all the data centers need that power so the AI in my toaster can cook my bagel to the exact right color.

    Here at the end I’m going to include various pictures I took during the trail that show the water level of the creek. I don’t know why, but most people I talk with are obsessed with what the water level of any body of water is at any particular time. If you are one of those people, then this last collage is for you. You’re welcome.