About two hours northwest of Austin, Texas, is a remote wilderness.  Colorado Bend State Park is 5,328 acres and filled with trails and caves.  The most visited spot in the park is Gorman Falls, a 70-foot spring fed waterfall over travertine formations.

The day I visited I wanted solitude decided to explore a lesser known area of the park.  Parts of the Spicewood Springs Creek and Canyon Trails do get busy, but for most of it, you likely won’t see anyone else.  Spicewood Springs Creek follows through a deep canyon on the south side of the park.  There are spring-fed swimming holes and waterfalls on this adventure.

I decided to hike a combination of the Spicewood Springs Trail and Spicewood Canyon Trail.  I started from the main road to hike the 1.3 miles down to Spicewood Springs Creek.  The first part of the trail is a combo of forest and meadow so I moved pretty quickly through it.  I did stop to check out the cacti in the meadows.

At 0.3 miles, I connected to the Spicewood Creek Trail.  This is would be where the Spicewood Canyon Trail would link me back up to return to my car.

Dropping down into the canyon, it wasn’t long before I was hiking next to a spring.  The sound of the babbling brook was exhilarating and calming at the same time.  This is what I came for.  The best part…I got most of this hike with no one else around.

The sounds of the flowing water and birds singing made a symphony only nature can create.  For the rest of the way down, I traversed over springs seeing small waterfalls along the way.  There were times I was jumping rocks across springs to moments of just standing there enjoying the water rushing over the small falls.

One of my favorite spots was a moss covered falls with multiple water shoots.

Shortly after that, I went through the rockiest terrain of the trail (it wasn’t bad!).  That led to a picturesque spot where I sat and had a snack next to a waterfall.

I continued hiking to the spring-fed swimming holes.  This was where I saw the most folks on the trail, and even then it was just a few.  I would imagine on a hot summer day there would be quite a few more folks trying to cool off here.

I continued hiking down to the Colorado River.  It was a short, easy walk along the river to connect back to the Spicewood Canyon Trail and hike the 2.4 miles back up to my car.  I loved getting a little climb in and boy, were the views of the canyon and Colorado River worth it.  Do the loop the way I did it so you can look down and see where you hiked.