Lake Georgetown backpacking

[The Wanna Bs]

Has anyone on this forum hiked this trail? Are there good hanging / camping sites to make it a thru hike? We're you able to find filter able water sources?

[lanejustin]

Lake Georgetown in Texas?

[spaceweaseal]

We hiked the trail last year and if you want to hang on the trail its rough to find good trees. You can plan it to stay at the pay site camps and yall will be ok. Water access is not really easy so plan to camel up and take extra water.
It is a great trail but it is rocky so be careful and have a great time.


Ps: the walk across the dam Sux's!

[sargevining]

Here ya go:

https://www.hammockforums.net/forum/showthread.php?71118-Goodwater-Death-March&highlight=deathmarch

[spaceweaseal]

It's well worth the effort and i plan on doing it again soon.

[lanejustin]

It's well worth the effort and i plan on doing it again soon.

I'd be up for it, but not sure if I could do the 18 miles in one day.

[The Wanna Bs]

Well, anyone who prays, pray for us as we are bound to try it this coming weekend. All the rain may make it a bit more difficult. Pray mostly that we find places to hang and water to drink. We will camel up and take a lot but not three days worth.

[Caveman]

It's a nice trail. There are tress, but we were trying to hang a group, and found it to be a bit difficult to find optimal spots for everyone. Have a great trip and wear good shoes (the rocks are pointy and can tire out the bottoms of your feet.... especially after 18 miles of it) :)

The dam does suck!

[Snaggleroot]

I backpacked the Goodwater Loop Trail around Lake Georgetown last November with a Boy Scout group (unfortunately, I was the only hanger). We left Houston after work on a Friday, arrived well after dark at the Jim Hogg trailhead and hiked counter-clockwise with headlamps for 5 miles until about midnight. The first night was at the Walnut Springs primitive campsite. There was only one set of trees that looked easy to hang from, but someone already had a tent between them. So, I had to do a more creative hang from a limb (long tree straps made it possible). Saturday night was at Cedar Breaks campground, and there were lots of trees to hang from. Sunday morning we completed the loop.

Tap water is available at Cedar Breaks, Russell Park, the Tejas Park campground at the western end of the lake, Jim Hogg and Lake Overlook Parks. Hanging trees are generally available within the established campgrounds. Less so at Walnut Springs - I don’t know about Sawyer or Cedar Hollow primitive campsites (note that camping is allowed only at named sites).

There are some interesting artifacts, especially between Russell and Tejas. The trail is rocky in places, but generally not a whole lot of up and down. If the lake is low enough, you can cut a few miles off by crossing before the west end of the lake (eliminating the Tejas water source). It was a challenge, but all but two of the youngest Scouts made it.

[The Wanna Bs]

We did it. You can find our trip report on the forum at.. https://www.hammockforums.net/forum/showthread.php?95336-Goodwater-Trail-26-5-official-miles

[Polkster13]

If you go all the way around the lake it is 26.2 miles total. I have only hammock camped on the south side of the lake so I can only speak of that side. I found a couple hanging sites with nice trees in Cedar Hollow campsite. AT Sawyer campsite, if you walk up the hill from the picnic table by the run-down potty, there is a small clearing a couple of nice places to hang a hammock. Overall though it is not very conducive for hammock hanging.

Another thing to keep in mind is the lake is way down and very difficult to get to from the trails. You either have to bushwhack through tall tickets and mud or scramble down and back up some fairly gnarly embankments (some over 50 o 70 feet tall) to get down to the lake to get water. I would plan on carrying all of the water I needed for the trip and not plan on using the lake. The lake water is also very silty and will be difficult to filter.

Another thing to keep in mind is that they let you hunt around Lake Georgetown so during deer season, stay on the trails and make plenty of noise to let hunters know you are out there. It is also better to go during the week instead of on the weekends to avoid the loud, obnoxious boat campers that tend to "invade" these parks and "Party Hardy" to all hours of the now (once they kept me up until 3:45 AM-was not a fun weekend for my group and I).

Another site you may want to consider that is fairly close to Austin is the LCRA park on Lake Travis called Shaffer Bend. There are lots of trails but they are way shorter than walking all the way around Lake Georgetown. There are lots of places to hang a hammock; but there is a small camping and entrance fee, whereas Lake Georgetown is free.