Choke Canyon and River Frio Trip

This is one of my favorite places in Texas.  The Frio River is a beautiful narrow, winding river with high banks.  One can surprise an alligator or wild turkeys when paddling around a tight turn.  The living trees are decorated with ball moss which looks like frilly Christmas ornaments.  This part of the river is best suited to canoeing, especially in solo canoes.  Sometimes there are large log jams which have to be portaged around.  The TP&W have closed Bracken boat ramp, or at least this was true for the last 3 years.  Sometimes the current is sluggish because of log jams upstream.  Other times one can barely paddle upstream past the ramp.

Recently we have put in at the FM 99 boat ramp and paddled upstream towards this area.  This is a little bigger section of the river  with more dead statuesque trees, more mud flats for bigger alligators to sun themselves, and less current.  But it is still curvy and suitable for both kayaks and canoes.  This is a flat water trip. A day trip consists of us putting in and paddling upstream until we get hungry, finding a dry spot to take out and eat and then paddling a little further before we decide to turn around and come home.  We paddle with flocks of coots skittering ahead of us, find a few different species of ducks and lots of wading birds.  Sometimes we see hawks and always buzzards overhead.

Put-in at FM 99

A sky full of cormorants

Turkeys

Deer and ducks at campsite

The lake is also fun to paddle but is large and usually somewhat windy to very windy with the wind frothing up the water into waves of gentle swells to big enough to keep all but the most experienced paddlers off the lakes.  But, especially from the Calahoun unit west and north, the lake is full of dead trees and has lots of nooks and crannies to explore.  We usually put in at the ramp right in the park.  Another alternative is to put in at Mason Point ramp, just west of the park and paddle either back to the park, paddle north up to FM 99, or just do a short loop and come back to there.  This paddling ranges from a one to perhaps a three in terms of difficulty or danger, depending on the amount of wind.

This is also a fun place to bring the rest of your non-paddling family.  There are lots of trails to hike or bike.  Indeed this is the only park I've found where you can ride through a herd of javelinas.  There is fabulous birding with lots of woodpeckers, caracaras, sandhill cranes,all kinds of egrets and herons, many species of ducks, grebes, yellowlegs, snipe, several species of Mexican birds. (Green jays are supposed to occur here but I haven't found them.)  pyrrhuloxias and golden fronted woodpeckers are common.  And there are often 3-5 species of flycatchers, sometimes on the same or nearby trees.  On my trips, I always bird from about 7A.M. to 10 A.M. before starting the Saturday paddle.

Miles from Houston - about 250

State Park Information and Reservations:  See Choke Canyon State Park for directions  from Three Rivers and more information plus a link to the reservations.