Passport to Texas

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Texas state parks have beautiful trails for mountain biking.

I was in west Texas, I’d say, a year ago and rode there. The formations there are like some surrealist painting, and it’s almost too beautiful to ride because you always want to be looking up instead of watching the trail.

Dan Oko, author of Texas Parks and Wildlife’s guide, Bike Texas, tells us about his favorite trails.

Well I call Austin home, so the trail that I ride most of all is the Barton Creek Greenbelt. It’s very challenging. At the far end of the ride from Zilker Park, you reach something called the Hill of Life, which is, I think, a rite of passage for every mountain biker in Texas is to get up that hill without stopping. The most beautiful place I have ridden in Texas is Palo Duro Canyon outside of Amarillo in the Panhandle.

Oko says there’s more to mountain biking than scenery.

I always think of the idea of the balance on the bike as the balance in your life, which is, once you get that sense of balance and the security as a mode of transportation balanced on the bike, then you can feel like everything else in your life can sort of follow that fluidity.

The Bike Texas guide highlights more than forty trails throughout the state, including road bike rides in parks. It’s available online; find a link at passporttotexas.org.

That’s our show…with research and writing help from Kate Lipinski… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Texas state parks have beautiful trails for mountain biking.

I was in west Texas, I’d say, a year ago and rode there. The formations there are like some surrealist painting, and it’s almost too beautiful to ride because you always want to be looking up instead of watching the trail.

Dan Oko, author of Texas Parks and Wildlife’s guide, Bike Texas, tells us about his favorite trails.

Well I call Austin home, so the trail that I ride most of all is the Barton Creek Greenbelt. It’s very challenging. At the far end of the ride from Zilker Park, you reach something called the Hill of Life, which is, I think, a rite of passage for every mountain biker in Texas is to get up that hill without stopping. The most beautiful place I have ridden in Texas is Palo Duro Canyon outside of Amarillo in the Panhandle.

Oko says there’s more to mountain biking than scenery.

I always think of the idea of the balance on the bike as the balance in your life, which is, once you get that sense of balance and the security as a mode of transportation balanced on the bike, then you can feel like everything else in your life can sort of follow that fluidity.

The Bike Texas guide highlights more than forty trails throughout the state, including road bike rides in parks. It’s available online; find a link at passporttotexas.org.

That’s our show…with research and writing help from Kate Lipinski… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

A Matter of Balance: Life & Bikes Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Part of the appeal of mountain biking, is the untamed terrain, however, the rocky trails can be a little rough on your bike.

For a beginner, the main things to worry about is do you know how to change a flat? Because if you ride ten miles in and you’ve got to come ten miles back out, you want to have that tire or else its going to be a very long walk.

Dan Oko, author of the Texas Parks and Wildlife guide – Bike Texas, says there are three basic tools that mountain bikers want to pack when heading out for a ride, starting with an Allen Wrench.

They have tire levers which are designed to go underneath the tire so that you can get that inner tube out if you happen to puncture it. I would say those are the two and the third thing is to have a chain device in case you break your chain.

Oko encourages riders to take it a step further than just packing those basic tools

You should learn to use the tools before you have a problem on the trail because chances are trying to figure it out on the trail will be really difficult. I was up in Cedar Hills State Park, outside of Dallas a couple of years ago, and a couple of guys rode up the trail and about two minutes later – they came back out. One of the guys had broken his chain. They didn’t have a chain tool, I did. When I handed the chain tool to the fellow, he didn’t know what to do with it. I ended up fixing his chain.

According to Oko, most local bike shops are more than willing to teach riders who to make repairs.

For more information on bike trails in state parks across Texas, visit passporttotexas.org.

That’s our show…with research and writing help from Kate Lipinski… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

On November 3rd, the city of Bastrop launched a new paddling trail with the help of Texas Parks and Wildlife.

I think that this trail is just a great half day trip for families and friends and people who just want to get out on the water.

Shelly Plante is the coordinator for Nature Tourism at Parks and Wildlife

This paddling trail, El Camino Real, starts off in downtown but goes through the piney woods as you head to the take out point. So you’re going to see something very different for Central Texas. This is just not the type of trees that you typically see in Central Texas.

The El Camino Real Paddling Trail is a 6 mile paddle.

This trail is actually fairly slow moving, fairly calm. There are a few minor rapids. There are a lot of great sandbars where you can take out and picnic, you can go swim and rest for a while. It’s a fairly leisurely run actually.

Although the trail starts in downtown Bastrop, paddlers will see a variety of wildlife.

There’s a lot of diversity. You’ll see a lot of different kinds of trees and there’s a lot of different birds. You’ll see everything from raptors like hawks, to king fishers, little bitty birds, to some of our large birds such as great blue herons.

More information about the El Camino Real Paddling Trail and the other 10 paddling trails in Texas is available at passporttotexas.org.

That’s our show…with research and writing help from Kate Lipinski… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration Program

White-tailed deer season is underway, and harvesting deer is vital to proper ecosystem management.

If we didn’t hunt deer in Texas, deer would eat themselves out of house and home. And not just themselves, but all species that thrive on that ecosystem.

Songbirds, for example, suffer when deer numbers are not controlled. Mitch Lockwood, statewide white-tailed deer program leader, says Texas has more than three–million white-tailed deer. And yet, surprisingly few hunters take full advantage of available bag limits.

One example is that in the Texas Hill Country, where we have the highest concentration of deer — where one can harvest as many as five deer a piece, the average hunter in the Hill Country harvests only one point one deer.

Most Hill Country hunters stop at maybe two deer.

So, with a harvest of 1 deer per hunter, we’re not ever going to meet our population management goals.

Lockwood stresses the importance of adequate doe harvest in most areas of Texas, and encourages hunters to take advantage of the bag limits by putting more antlerless deer in the freezer. However, if your freezer is full, there are programs to help you distribute the meat.

Hunters for the hungry program in Texas is growing. And there are other programs that help hunters defer some of those processing costs so that hunters can donate venison to the needy with minimal expense.

That’s our show…made possible today by a grant from the Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration Program…working to increase fishing, hunting, shooting and boating opportunities in Texas.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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