The wife and I were planning our first hang in Pedernales State Park, near where we live in South Austin. Unfortunately, the Texas State Parks around here (Pedernales, Bastrop, Beucher, Palmetto, Guadalupe River, McKinney and Enchanted Rock) are booked on the weekends for months in advance, so we had to look into alternatives. We found several and I am posting some reports on some lesser known campgrounds in the area that may be available on short notice compared to the busier State Parks.
Pace Bend is on the south side of Lake Travis, accessible from Hwy 71. It occupies a 3ish mile peninsula formed by a large bend in Lake Travis. It is owned by the Lower Colorado River Authority but operated by Travis County Parks Department. There is a fee, I think is is $5 per person, can't remember exactly. It has several boat ramps and a swimming area. We do not have a boat, and didn't try to go for a swim, but the lake is down a lot (around 50' last I heard) so some of the ramps are closed and swimming access is not convenient currently since you have to go so far to get to where the water is right now.
The best thing about Pace is sheer size. They list 400 (yes, 400!) primitive camp sites plus a couple of dozen with hookups. The park road is a six mile loop around the shores on either side, with short paved loops and spurs off it that hold the actual campsites. Though several of the loops were closed when we were there, we had dozens and dozens of sites to choose from on a Saturday night. The east side of the park gently slopes to the water's edge, so is more popular, and is where the sites with hookups are, though it has plenty of primitive sites as well. The west shore is mainly cliff with only a few boat ramps to access the water, and so is less crowded. The east side has plenty of trees, but is more open and less private. The west side is less busy and more thickly wooded, so is more secluded and has more hanging options than the east side Careful with kids and pets on the west side though, the cliffs are a pretty steep drop-off, and many sites are close to the edges.
There are numerous pit toilets throughout the park, as well as dumpsters and a dumping station. There is tap water available in a couple of spots. Most primitive sites have a fire-ring and a picnic table, though some are missing one or the other. The sites on the west shore have plenty of space between sites, and are nicely shaded and private feeling. Firewood is available at a country store near the park entrance. The gate attendant didn't bat an eye when we said we were hammocking, and the rangers drove by several times and waved at us after we were set up, so it looks like hammockers are totally welcome. They do not take reservations for primitive camping, since there are so many sites that it almost never fills up. The sites most appropriate for hammocking (west side) are the last to fill up since they don't have as good of lake access.
This is not exactly a wilderness experience, Lake Travis is heavily used, and there are homes lake houses and floating docks along the opposite shores that might spoil the views for some people. OTOH, sheer size makes it pretty secluded and private. This is car-camping only, there are no back country sites, though for a car camp place the sites are pretty secluded compared to State Parks, and is much more wild than one would expect this close to the city. It is about 30 miles from south Austin, where we live.
The park has 15 miles of mixed use trails winding through the center of the park for day hiking. A local biking club has rebuilt several of the trails into very nice mountain biking trails, and has even put a skills course with wooden features for beginners. Consequently, there are a lot of bikes on the trail, so make sure to be alert and give way to bikes and keep your pets close by to prevent accidents. The trails are pretty much bike-first, hike second, but this is fair, since they are the ones doing the work to maintain them.
There was a large bike race the weekend we went, so we most of the trails were closed to hiking. There were hundreds of people there for the race, most of them camping, yet they were not even noticeable with so many sites to choose from. Including ours, there were three campsites taken out of about thirty on the loop we stayed on; we only knew they were there because we saw their cars.
We will definitely be returning here, Pace Bend is now our go-to local site for last minute car-camping and overnight gear testing.
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