Lake Somerville Is the Disneyland of Texas State Parks

“Whatever your outdoor passion, you can pursue it here.” So declares Texas Parks and Wildlife’s enticing web page for Lake Somerville State Park & Trailway. Encircling an almost 12,000-acre man-made lake, the park sits smack-dab between Austin and Houston. This vast hub of open-air amusement comprises two units (Birch Creek at 2,365 acres and Nails Creek at 3,155 acres), the 13-mile Lake Somerville Trailway, and the 350-acre Flag Pond, a habitat for migrating birds.

Other parks are more showy, like Big Bend Ranch, with its desert vistas, and Colorado Bend, with its transporting waterfalls. I anticipated something more straightforward with Lake Somerville, but I should have known: it is often the unassuming parks that offer the biggest surprises.

Lake Somerville is one of only 22 of Texas’s 88 state parks with equestrian trails, and since I belatedly made reservations to visit during spring break, just a handful of equestrian sites remained. My family and I spent our first couple nights at the grassy Birch Creek unit, where recent flood damage precluded equestrian camping (our neighbors used the horse corrals to hang their hammocks). Inspired nonetheless, I sought out an equine experience with Cowboy Country Life, which provides guided experiences via horseback. We met Clint Cannon (cowboy, owner, and guide) one morning at the Nails Creek unit, which I mistakenly thought was just around the corner. Fair warning, fellow travelers: it’s almost a thirty-minute drive from one unit to another, along 23 miles of a farm road that runs well beyond the perimeter of the lake, where you might need to stop abruptly for rooster and cow dog crossings.

My two daughters, Leila, 12, and Soraya, 6, and I climbed astride Tango, Colorado, and Buttons for our two-hour ride over almost every inch of available equine trail at Nails Creek. Riding near the shore of Lake Somerville, we waved at campers, feeling like explorers embarking on our own adventure.

“You get such a different view,” Leila remarked. The back of a horse provided an ideal vantage point to appreciate the landscape, freckled with wildflowers that had popped up in the spring sunshine. We rode over dry creek beds and around ponds newly filled from recent rains.  The trail took us across a swampy passage, up rocky paths, and down gentle slopes. At one point Clint stopped to point out a bald eagle perched on a bare branch of a post oak in the distance.

While we explored the park atop our gentle equine guides, Clint shared stories about trips he’d taken with his kids, in which they rode their horses into the wilderness, with minimal supplies, unrolling mats to sleep directly under the stars. It was easy to imagine a return to such simplicity, lulled by the cadence of our horses’ four-beat walk.

I worried my youngest, just a kindergartner would not be up to the ride, especially as she struggled to steer Tango away from the eastern red cedar trees, her little body holding firm against the unrelenting smack of their bristly branches. Clint assured me she’d be fine, and he was right. Later she reflected fondly, “It’s like hiking, except you’re sitting the whole time.”

The lake that gives the park its name was completed in 1967 after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dammed Yegua Creek Basin, a watershed that sustained life from the era of the Tonkawa and Tawakoni to the late 1800s, when the introduction of the railroad prompted a population boom. Now kids splash in the waters and families sprawl across the bluebonnet-laced ground, their individual fishing poles lined up along the 85-mile shoreline.

“The boring part of fishing is waiting. The fun part is casting,” Soraya observed. More proficient (and patient) anglers can look forward to the wide variety of bass, catfish, crappie, and stocked rainbow trout. We joined a triad of University of Texas students, a couple of families from Katy, and a few other parents helping their kids along at a Fishing 101 class offered by the park. As the hour slowly passed, our group of nascent fishers trickled off one by one. There were a couple of hopeful shouts, but the only thing anyone reeled in was seaweed and some perspective on how much work it takes to actually catch a fish for dinner.

We opted to forgo catching our own food for the ease of an H-E-B curbside pickup, which allowed me to test out my newly acquired Dutch oven skills. On a blustery morning, I joined Dutch Oven Cooking 101, the first such class offered by the park and led by Mike Mullen, who teaches camp cooking and prepares meals for groups through his business Uncle Mike’s Outdoor Kitchen. A generous teacher with the ability to deliver complex information in a deliciously digestible way, Mullen shared helpful tips, such as using a lid stand (to hold your Dutch oven lid) to avoid “introducing into your food greater mineral content than you intended.” Attending his class was like visiting a traveling museum, since every conceivable variation of Dutch oven accessories was on display. That included many DIY versions, such as a lid stand fashioned from horseshoes and a windscreen made from an old license plate (shiny side in and painted numbers out, so they don’t melt).

For the demonstration, Mullen made the ever-popular “dump cake,” a magical amalgam of boxed cake mix, two cans of fruit pie filling, and enough lemon-lime soda to moisten the top. You can also make it with butter, but he prefers Sprite. “There’s not anything you can fix in your kitchen at home that I can’t make in a Dutch oven at a campground,” he said. For my part, thanks to the internet, a bit of gumption, and Uncle Mike, my camping breakfasts have evolved from boxes of Frosted S’mores Pop-Tarts to Dutch oven frittatas.

One evening, we timed our campfire nacho dinner early so as to brave dusk and join Ranger Lisette Monteagudo for a nocturnal hike. We met at the headquarters of the Birch Creek unit, where our numbers quickly swelled to almost fifty participants of every age. We set off on the grassy path of Wilderness Run, a 1.3-mile trail that runs about halfway through the unit, with the sun setting behind us and a chorus of insects beginning their evening symphony. I stepped gingerly over a path of ants working tirelessly; Soraya bent down to assist them with their chore, dropping a bit of grass for them to gather. A baby bunny hid in the brush, and vultures circled overhead. As we continued, the ground became sandy, lined with shriveled dove weed (named for the mourning dove that loves to eat it). Ranger Lisette pointed out yaupon holly, which Native Americans used for medicine, remarking on how humans have long been connected to the environment and its many resources. A copperhead stopped on the path a few feet ahead, and Ranger Lisette motioned for us to pause. We took turns shuffling back so everyone who wanted to brave a sighting could get a chance.

Sweeping the ground with a blacklight, Ranger Lisette found a single, tiny striped bark scorpion at the end of our hike. She shared that on some walks, the path looks like the night sky under the glow of her light, since there are so many scorpions scattered across it. On our drive back to our campsite we saw a deer leap over the fence and a rabbit scurry off the road.

Sometimes the most unexpected perspective shifts come in moments of relaxation, like a midafternoon break in a hammock during the middle of our camping adventure. Swaddled in nylon, I rested my eyes, as my grandma says. Cardinals chirped their melodic warnings, while an occasional breeze whooshed through the branches, rustling the leaves. In nature, there are infinite treasures to mull over. Spider lilies push up from their winter slumber, sunlight breaks through the spotted canopy above, and the white-throated sparrow sings out its itchy tink calls. Little jewels emerge on even the briefest of trails, while the kids speculate on the lives of the resident fairies. These quiet moments turn upside down our usual harried weeks and provide a moment to drink in a warm Texas spring day.