Gene Hikes the Appalachian Trail

Tag: nature

  • McKinney Falls State Park

    On the twentieth of June in 2025 Governor Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 2232 establishing October 21 as Unplug Texas Day. In 2026 we observed the second Unplug Texas Day, when Texans are encouraged to stop doomscrolling and visit their local parks and recreation centers. Conveniently for me, this year the date fell on an off-day between the end of the League Championship Series and the start of the World Series. So I decided to celebrate by planning an overnight trip to McKinney Falls State Park.

    Situated only a few miles from the airport and under 15 miles from downtown, McKinney Falls State Park is like a 700 acre oasis surrounded by urban blight. Multiple campsites and cabins are available to reserve every day right from their website, or you could pretend it is 1997 and call them. Although it can get crowded on weekends, during the week I had no trouble reserving a site only a couple of days before my check-in.

    I hiked up to the main gate and they handed me some maps and showed me where my camp was located. A spot with some flat ground, electricity, water, and a picnic table runs $24 a night. And for that price you can have up to eight people and two cars stay there. A great deal in my opinion. A day pass to just hang out in and around the park costs $6. However I didn’t have to pay that because I acquired a free Parklands Passport due to shamelessly cashing in my veteran status.

    McKinney Falls has a huge tangle of different trails, and I figured I would try a couple of smaller ones before hitting my campsite. Armadillo Trail and Cactus Garden Trail both branch off from the main trail, Onion Creek Trail, and are about a half mile long each.

    Both trails were unpaved and had loose rocks strewn about, exactly the kind of trail I want to find more often.

    I didn’t have to traverse Cactus Garden for long before finding out why it has that name.

    That many prickly pear cactus can lead to an unlimited supply of bloatfly sliders. Sadly, there were no armadillos on Armadillo Trail, before you think to ask.

    Onion Creek Trail is the main trail that goes around most of the southern portion of McKinney Falls. It is paved and accommodates bicycles and all that sort of stuff. If McKinney Falls is an organism, Onion Creek Trail would be its aorta.

    As nightfall approached I finally made my way to the spot I would be calling home. As promised, it was essentially what I described above. The bare necessities. If you consider electricity a necessity, which might be the case in 2026.

    My main reason for coming here in the first place was to stress test my gear, so the first thing I did was get my tent set up. Since it was a clear, cloudless, windless night I decided to forego my rainfly.

    Once I got the tent set up and had some of my humanitarian daily ration, there was nothing left to do but wait for sleepy time. Sitting at my campsite at dusk I was overcome by memories of being a kid and enjoying many an early autumn evening just like this one forty odd years ago. All that was missing was a bunch of fireflies. And my family.

    Not setting up my rainfly turned out to be a bad idea. I had left my bulky winter sleeping bag at home and only had my lighter one with me. I didn’t freeze like a meat pop but I definitely felt my toes get noticeably cold during the last few hours before sunrise. It only got down to the mid 50s too, so I need to carry my bulkiest sleeping bag and use my entire tent whenever I go out from now on.

    One thing I was worried about was whether or not I needed a sleeping pad. I had not planned on buying one and never needed it. I don’t have or plan to get a pillow either, and the night at McKinney Falls justified that decision as well.

    Now seems like as good a time as any to talk about my backpack. I am using a 60 liter pack I bought from Walmart. That makes not bringing my warmest sleeping bag even more annoying, I absolutely had room for it and just left it at home because I’m lazy. This pack is great so far; it fits me well, is adjustable, has tons of pockets, and cost well under $100. I might make a post about it later, it’s that awesome.

    Once I woke up and packed up it was time to head out. I cleaned up a little at the cabin that acted as a shared bathroom for all the different camps in the area. The bathroom was incredibly clean and had more than enough toilet paper. Perfect time for a gallery.

    I spent most of the morning meandering around along Onion Creek Trail with no particular purpose. That wound up being a great thing because it led to some pictures of some northern cardinals.

    These are obviously not great pictures, but you know to expect that by now. Maybe once winter comes and all the leaves fall from the trees the birds will stop hiding behind them so much. Just trust me, those red patches in the shots above are cardinals.

    Now for some facts about northern cardinals. Their scientific name is Cardinalis cardinalis. When an animal has the same genus and species name it is called a tautonym. There are, surprisingly, a lot of animals that are tautonyms. Here is a small sample of some of my favorites:

    • Gorilla gorilla (Western gorilla)
    • Dives dives (melodious blackbird)
    • Iguana iguana (American iguana)
    • Anthrax anthrax (bee fly)
    • Lactarius lactarius (False trevally)

    False trevally is a pretty interesting story. It is a fish that looks like a trevally, but is not actually related to them. It belongs to an entirely different family (Lactariidae) of which it is the only member. And yes, I am aware that whole story has nothing to do with cardinals.

    The northern cardinal is the state bird of seven U.S. states, more than any other bird. They are also very defensive, known to attack their own reflection in a window. Maybe that is why so many teams use them as a mascot. Cardinals also love eating sunflower seeds, so you should use them in your feeder. Maybe I need a feeder, maybe then birds wouldn’t actively avoid me while my camera is in my hand.

    I also saw the remains of this old horse trainer’s cabin. Now is the portion of this post where I regale you with a tiny bit of central Texas history. McKinney Falls is named for Thomas McKinney, who built his homestead there in the mid-nineteenth century. McKinney was a businessman and entrepreneur who helped fund the Texas Revolution in 1835-36. He then became a politician and served in the Texas House of Representatives. He enjoyed raising and riding horses, which explains the horse trainer’s cabin on his property.

    McKinney sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War and ultimately got ruined when the South was defeated. He lost his fourteen slaves, which made it way harder for him to raise and train horses. That’s a shame. Anyway, he died in debt and in 1976 his old stomping grounds became a state park.

    McKinney’s homestead sat at the confluence of Onion Creek and Williamson Creek. Williamson Creek is named for Robert McAlpin Williamson, who is also the namesake of Williamson County, which sits immediately to the north of Travis County. A noted jurist and politician, Williamson was reportedly the first white man to ever learn to play the banjo. He was also known as “Three-Legged Willie” because of his enormous schlong. Okay, actually it was because he used a prosthetic wooden leg due to a childhood illness. You can see why he got the name if you check out his statue in Georgetown.

    But never let the truth get in the way of a good story. For all we know, he was packing some epically oversized man-meat. Everything is bigger in Texas after all.

    I got some nice shots of the creek as well as a shot of a golf course on the other side of the creek from the park. I probably wasn’t supposed to go onto the golf course, but I am a rebel like that.

    Lastly, as I was getting ready to hike out I caught a massive break from the universe. This one bird just decided to plop down on the top of a tree right next to me. Right at the top where no branches or leaves could block it. And it just sat there and let me take picture upon picture of it. This little birdie definitely wins star of the show for the entire trip.

    I am not 100% sure, but I’m reasonably comfortable saying this is a northern mockingbird. That is the official state bird of six states, second most in the USA. In addition to mimicking other birds, they can also imitate frogs, toads, and music. As far as diet, they prefer insects and fruit.

    I had the good sense to know when I was ahead and quickly leave the park after that. I’m pleased as punch with how all my gear held up over the weekend. Eager to try another overnight in colder conditions or maybe even rain to test my gear, and myself, even more.

  • Finders Keepers

    I’ve been walking around outside this year far more than at any time in my life. Honestly, it feels like I’m walking aimlessly outside more than anyone has ever walked. I averaged over 11000 steps a day last month and am looking to beat that this month. With all this walking around, I have found quite a few cool items hanging out on the ground waiting to be picked up. This seems like as good a time as ever to share some of my best finds so far.

    I want to start with this food bag I found one day near North Lamar Transit Center. There is some community outreach in the area that works with homeless people and newly released felons. One thing the organization does is hand out these bags with snacks in them. I guess the people that get the help think they are too good for it or something, because I see bags like this left on the ground nearby frequently. I am never one to look a gift horse in the mouth so I happy grabbed up this one.

    The bag itself was cool to the touch when I picked it up despite this being early afternoon. That meant it must have been dropped recently. I was already hungry when I happened on the bag, so I quickly devoured the Cheez-Its, string cheese, and oranges. I gave the unopened apple juice away to some kid and brought the sunflower seeds home.

    I had never heard of Neuro mints before I found an unopened package of twelve sitting on a park bench covered in graffiti. These Sleep & Recharge mints use the power of melatonin and chamomile to help you fall asleep fast. You pop one in and suck it like a Tic Tac or a Mentos and it helps put you out in 20 minutes.

    I used one when I needed to get up crazy early one day. I popped it in and played some silly YouTube video about an ancient civilization or the science behind black holes or some such. Within ten minutes I was out. I tried it again a few weeks later when I needed to hit the sack early and it worked again. I guess I’m sold. Neuro makes more mints to promote concentration, memory, and calmness. If I find any of those on a park bench I’ll try them too.

    For those of you who do not believe in an all-knowing and benevolent God, I ask you to explain this next set of pictures.

    Alright, admittedly some context may be necessary here. At the beginning of this summer I got a fruit fly infestation in my apartment. I’m not one hundred percent certain how it happened. One must have gotten in and laid some eggs in my trash or something. Anyways, due largely to my refusal to actually clean my kitchen and take out the trash like a normal person, a few flies became a lot of flies a few days later. Those flies expanded their nascent empire from the kitchen to include the bathroom in a few more days.

    By that point I was fully invested in doing everything to end the outbreak. I was cleaning up after myself like a normie. I poured apple cider vinegar and ammonia down my drains. I maniacally tossed out any trash as soon as I created it. None of it had any lasting effect on the situation. I briefly considered throwing in with the invaders and becoming Lord of the Flies. But then I realized they didn’t need me at all. I would just be Jester of the Flies if anything.

    While I was at my most desperate was when I found this Zevo behind a dumpster. I truly believe the Lord himself left it there for me to find. The box had one electronic trap with three cartridges. I plugged it in overnight and awoke to dozens of those things dead in the trap. The tide had finally turned. Through perseverance, continued hygienic practices, and efficient use of all three Zevo cartridges I was able to lick the incursion.

    Outside of the supermarket one day I found two cans of Zoa. Zoa is the energy drink from The Rock. The Brahma Bull, The People’s Champion. The most electrifying man in sports entertainment. Normally I don’t drink this sort of stuff, but they were free so I took them home and stuck them in the fridge.

    When I drank them the next day they were pretty much exactly what I, a non-fan of these sorts of drinks, expected. The fruit punch taste was okay but was overpowered by a tinny aftertaste and that “too sweet” taste you got from artificial sweeteners. I can only complain so much because they were free, but I wouldn’t ever pay for one of these. In order to improve the product, what I think…

    … okay, I’ll shut up and move on.

    Yes I will address the elephant in the room. A lot of these treasures I discovered have been food. It makes sense that I would notice food above everything else, I am a very food motivated individual. Coming out of the library I found this collection of jerky strewn about on the ground. I rounded them up into a small pile before taking the first picture.

    I tossed these into my backpack and kind of forgot all about them. While on one of my hikes I was dying for a snack and remembered this turkey jerky existed. They were great to get me over the finish line that day and on a few hikes since. The taste was as salty as expected and spicier than expected. I enjoyed these and would even buy more with my own money in the future.

    I found this black gardening hat less than a block from my apartment. And, yes, I washed it before I put it on. Great for keeping the sun out of my face. Big, floppy brim and easily foldable to fit in my pocket.

    As useful as this hat was it wasn’t something I needed. I already had three boonie hats so I had little need for a fourth one. After rocking this thing for a couple weeks I gave it to Goodwill. And, yes, I washed it first. I like to think some little old white lady is planting petunias somewhere in greater Austin while wearing the awesome black hat she found as a bargain at the thrift store.

    This one happened just last weekend. Not long after I wrote my whole post about the twentieth anniversary of quitting smoking. If I had found three cigarettes 21 years ago I would have been overjoyed. If I had noticed that they were Marlboros, like these, I’d have done the Ray Lewis dance for a full fifteen seconds.

    What really happened is that I merely stopped and contemplated why someone would have dropped these and not gone back to pick them up, considering the price of cigarettes nowadays. Then I decided to take a couple of pictures. Then, if I’m being honest, I thought for a fleeting moment about how nice it would be to smoke one. Then I just walked away.

    Insert something profound about how the things you find actually find you.

  • Worst Fear: Bear Rape

    The Revenant won three Academy Awards, including Best Director for Alejandro Iñárritu and Best Actor for Leonardo DiCaprio. It is based on the true story of Hugh Glass and his fight to survive the American wilderness in the early nineteenth century. In what is by far the most memorable scene of this movie, Glass gets repeatedly violated by a bear in the woods.

    That was a movie after all. Do bears really want to rape people? Or is that just movie magic and suspension of disbelief? Would a bear find me attractive? That is quite a few questions to ponder. What is the word for being violated by a bear? Well, I looked it up and couldn’t get a definitive answer. I tried all sorts of search terms:

    • “bear rape man”
    • “how can bear rape man consent”
    • “jeremy allen white shirtless pics”

    I got all kinds of weird, weird things and went down all sorts of disturbing rabbit holes, but no luck on finding conclusive terminology. Also I need to clear my browser history more frequently. Seems like if I raped a bear it would be “ursophilia”, so maybe the term I’ll use is “reverse ursophilia”.

    To say that I fear reverse ursophilia somewhere in the woods of Appalachia would seem obvious. I believe every single person on the planet would choose not to experience this if given any other option. But how likely is this to happen? Are there big, burly bears along the Appalachian Trail and are they on the prowl for fresh meat? To clarify, when I talk about “burly bears” in this post, I mean the family Ursidae.

    American black bears exist along most of the Appalachian Trail. My research indicates that they are more interested in my improperly stored and disposed of food than my improperly protected orifices. You can’t put a bear canister around your bunghole, but you probably don’t need to. Safe to say that the odds of reverse ursophilia are vanishingly small. But how about a non-sexual encounter with a burly bear?

    There are very few encounters of any kind between black bears and humans each year. Fewer than one person is killed by a black bear every two years since 1900, according to sources. But an incident doesn’t need to be fatal to end in reverse ursophilia. There has been an almost 100% increase in bear incidents since last year.

    Why is that? It seems like droughts and scorching temperatures everywhere are putting pressure on the food resources bears depend upon. This pressure causes them to venture out of their comfort zones and into more contact and conflict with people. More people doing more outdoor activities in ever-decreasing wilderness spaces exacerbates the problem.

    Still, by and large, bears don’t want to have anything to do with us. Sexually or otherwise. The reason for that seems to be the old standby “they are just as scared of us as we are of them”. They must have access to my search history. As long as you don’t feed bears or poke bears, stay on designated routes, and practice meticulous litter discipline they will probably leave you all alone. But bring bear canisters and bear spray just in case.

    Being raped by a bear? Horrifying result, imperceptibly low likelihood. Having an incident with a bear? Troubling to possibly injurious result, very low likelihood if appropriate steps are taken.

    To finish up I want to revisit The Revenant and my favorite fact about it. In that movie a young Will Poulter portrays Jim Bridger. Bridger wound up becoming one of the most influential explorers in the American West. He has multiple towns and schools named in his honor. Coolest of all, in my opinion, he is immortalized along with John Calvin McCoy and Alexander Majors in a statue at Pioneer Park in Kansas City.

    Majors, McCoy, and Bridgers (L to R)

    No bears or people were harmed in the making of this blog post.

  • Brushy Creek Trail

    I actually left the safe environs of Austin to travel all the way up to Cedar Park in order to check out Brushy Creek Trail. It turned into quite an adventure on an amazing trail surrounded by some amazing parks with tons of things to do and see. But I’m getting a little ahead of myself.

    The western terminus of the Brushy Creek Trail is located at a trailhead near Twin Lakes Family YMCA in Cedar Park. Cedar Park is a suburb about 15 miles northwest of downtown Austin. Probably the two things Cedar Park are most known for are H-E-B Center, home of the Austin Spurs and Texas Stars, and the never-ending drama surrounding their city flag.

    In 2016 Cedar Park pretended to be a real city and designed a flag of their very own. After a lot of to-do and hubbub they released one that was met with annoyance and derision. So they took it down and never bothered to create a new one. Almost ten years and counting at this point.

    Twin Lakes Family YMCA is a big deal destination with a million and one things to do. Especially on a hot summer’s day. This is a common trend along the Brushy Creek Trail. Almost everywhere along the trail there was always something else fun you could be doing instead. Check out all these options available at the Y.

    The happiest place on Earth. Click to enlarge.

    Fishing, water slides, pools, play areas. Sky Trail. I honestly didn’t want to leave the Y to even get started with the hike. Filled with sadness, I did make my way to the mile zero marker. All along this trail there are stone markers buried in the ground at 1/4 mile intervals, beginning with the first one.

    Immediately after leaving the Y, the trail meandered along following the creek. For about the first two miles there was not much but loads of trees and plants. They did have these “animal tracks” stamped into the concrete on the trail, which looked aesthetically pleasing.

    One tremendous thing about this trail is how clearly and carefully it was laid out. After two miles I came across Brushy Creek Sports Park. Pretty much the entire trail from there to the eastern end ran alongside or through a park of some kind. This was the secret to why it felt like there was always something to do; there was always something to do.

    Brushy Creek Sports Park was exactly what it sounded like. A park with lots of sports. Sports, sports, sports.

    They had softball / baseball fields, football / soccer fields, and play areas for kids.

    That final picture is obviously of a bike repair station. A great accessory since there were tons of bikers using the trail the day I was. This would be as good a time as any to talk about how well Brushy Creek Trail lets bikers and hikers co-exist. Most of the trail was paved but there were lots of unpaved paths as well. And a lot of unpaved trails running parallel to paved trails specifically for bikers to use. It really felt like the trail was not geared toward either bikers or hikers, but actually a shared experience for both. What an idea!

    Just past Brushy Creek Sports park came Brushy Creek Lake Park. It sort of combined the best of both worlds. A lake on one side with fishing and kayaking and such. A park on the other side with open spaces and beach volleyball and two bocce ball courts (bring your own bocce balls).

    That last picture shows a body curl and ab workout station that I assumed was part of an outdoor fitness area. I looked all over everywhere near it but could not find so much as a rusty pull-up bar nearby. It’s too bad because the only thing that could have made this better was some freestanding exercise equipment.

    As a reader of this blog, you have surely picked up on the fact that I am not particularly enamored with modern art. Most of it seems like easily disregarded trash created by people with too much free time and disposable income. However, sometimes a piece will cause a small stir in the part of my brain that yearns to appreciate beauty. I saw one of those pieces on the shore of Brushy Creek Lake. Here is “Freshwater Cowgirl” sculpted by Anthony St. James.

    I’m not sure what it is exactly that I enjoy about this piece. Maybe the way she seems to rise from the earth like Minerva from Jupiter’s skull. Or the fact that she seems to be offering you something you strongly desire with her free hand. It has been said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture, and certainly talking about art falls into that same category. I really liked it, is all I’m trying to say.

    Moving on from the lake I got to cross over the dam that explained it.

    By this point, I was just over halfway to the other end.

    Next up was Champion Park. This park was named after Jack Champion, who owned 200 acres of land along Brushy Creek in the nineteenth century. He was buried in a small cemetery adjacent to the trail and park. The thing I’ll remember most from this park is the unfathomable water pressure behind the bottle filler on the water fountain. It literally knocked the bottle out of my hand when I first held it underneath the damn thing.

    I know I’ve already heaped so much praise on this trail, but I need to continue to do so. More kudos because it really felt as though this trail was designed by and for people with two things as high priorities: staying hydrated and staying in the shade. There were loads of water fountains all over. Not all of them worked, but even still it was never more than a mile and a half or so between working ones. Same with the toilets. There were also multiple locations totally covered in shade, even in midday.

    My next noteworthy experience was catching some shots of a giant bird perched ominously along the treetops.

    I believe this to be a red-tailed hawk based on my extensive knowledge of the local fauna. If it had made a noise I would be certain. Red-tailed hawks make the noise you imagine birds of prey make. If you’ve ever heard a bird of prey in a movie or on TV, you probably heard a red-tailed hawk. Check this video about the difference in sound between a red-tailed hawk and a bald eagle. One sounds like it wants to go to war, the other sounds like it wants to go to Starbucks.

    At one of the creek crossings, I almost got a picture of a great blue heron. It darted across from one set of trees into another before I could get my camera ready. It never poked back out again even though I waited for about ten minutes. I’m still fighting with myself and my equipment to become the nature photographer I know I can be. In the meantime, these back-lit faraway shots are all I have.

    The next few parks the trail touched were Olsen Meadows Park, Creekside Park, and Shirley McDonald Park. Creekside was the largest of those parks and included tennis courts, play areas, and a pool.

    Past Shirley McDonald Park one leaves the city of Cedar Park and enters the city of Round Rock. Round Rock is another suburb of Austin most known for being the home of Michael “Dude, You’re Getting A” Dell and his company Dell Technologies. It is also the home of the Round Rock Express. The Express are a minor league baseball team that oscillates affiliations between the Astros and the Rangers every few years. They have been the Rangers’ AAA team since 2021 so they are probably due to go back to the Astros soon enough.

    The coolest thing about moving into Round Rock is that Brushy Creek Road becomes Hairy Man Road. This gives me the perfect excuse to discuss The Hairy Man.

    The Hairy Man was a small boy in the 1800s who got separated from his parents and was raised by the fauna of Brushy Creek. As he grew he had no clothes to wear. Fortunately, his hirsuteness covered his modesty. The Hairy Man vowed to protect the denizens of Brushy Creek by scaring away other people. One day he got trampled by some horses, but the caretaking cryptid is said to still haunt the area until this day.

    Click to enlarge.

    The Hairy Man is a pretty big deal in Round Rock. So much so that there is a whole day and festival devoted to him. The day includes a 5k race and a hairiest man contest. The festival is on October 17th this year, which means you still have time to stop shaving your back and enter yourself in the competition.

    There wasn’t really much left to do to wrap up this trail after that. You may notice the very first picture here mentions Fern Bluff. In case you are wondering what a “fern bluff” is, I’ve got you.

    The bluffs are an outcrop of rock that provides the perfect amount of shade to allow the ferns to bloom underneath their purview.

    Soon after that I hit the mile 6.50 marker.

    And finally, the end of the trail. I knew this because there was a helpful sign.

    Normally, I’d wrap everything up here. But in this case I actually had to walk all the way back to the Twin Lakes YMCA to complete a slightly greater than 13 mile loop. For some other stupid reason I decided to do a whole host of errands after I finished up. This resulted in me walking over 60000 steps on the day. I had never even done 50000 up to this point so, needless to say, I was plumb wore out.

    Having read this far I doubt I need to explicitly mention in my conclusion, but I loved loved loved this trail. I loved the way they integrated both bikers and hikers. I loved the way the trail touched so many parks with so many things to do in them. I loved the facilities. I loved learning about The Hairy Man. Easily the best trail I’ve hiked so far.