Hill Country State Natural Area

Daniel Sevilla

We attended the Full Moon hike last night and it was fantastic! The rangers were informative and charismatic . The moonlit terrain and historic structures were magical to experience. As the hike progressed it got cooler and cooler the breeze through the washes we crossed were refreshing. I will do this again.

Ashish Waghray

Beautiful park with typical hill country scenery. This is a fairly primitive park with primitive facilities and popular with horseback riders. It has some nice day hikes with all-round views within a few miles. The trails are generally moderate. There will likely be no shade during your hike. The campgrounds only have porta potties.

Oren Weiss

I had a great time here , I came on Christmas Day and the park was almost empty. The ice cream hill loop is nice and and seeing it from the view point in vista ridge trail ! Don’t forget to book a pass in advance- this is the practice in all the state parks in Texas during the pandemic. I’ll come back soon.

ixi music

This is a hidden gem. Hardly anyone was there the weekend of July 12-14 so it's great if you're looking for seclusion and relative quiet. I saw rabbits and deer a few times and the frogs make such a beautiful soundtrack at night. I stayed in site 129, which was like my own personal park - absolutely stunning, huge, with magical trees. There are 40 miles of trails! I hiked most of Bandera Creek Trail (dry creek when I was there), Spring Branch Trail and Wilderness Trail with the overlook trail that comes off of it. Great vistas with sunny and shady parts, but confusing sometimes since they cross over each other and the road multiple times. I say don't worry if you get disoriented, you'll eventually get back to where you started but bring twice as much water as you think you'll need! I liked the part of the trail leading up to the Madrone Trail, very shady with leafy trees. The flat, pastoral trails are surprisingly pretty at sunset. I didn't love the Comanche Bluff Trail and the view of the sunset was obstructed. The Chaquita Falls trail leads to a nice creek but you can't really see the falls from there. If you get hot and need to cool down in some water, I recommend driving into town and hitting up the Bandera City Park. That part of the river is lined with Bald Cypress and it's really lovely. I am already looking forward to my next trip out here. There were several fields that I could tell were covered in wildflowers last month so I think springtime must be crazy gorgeous.