Wolf Mountain Trail

About trip

The Texas Hill Country, a cave-riddled limestone uplift overlain by oak and juniper woodlands also known as the Edwards Plateau, provides the setting for Pedernales Falls State Park. This scenic region of Texas has traditionally been favored by both ranchers and biologists for its terraced, grass-covered landscape and abundant springfed creeks and rivers. While the Texas Hill Country is splendid any time of year, it really stands out during springtime wildflower blooms when millions of bluebonnets, paintbrush, bee balm, and firewheels blanket the countryside like woven tapestries. Early German settlers and botanists were drawn to the region for its wealth of resources and sheer beauty. They identified plant species and built rock-solid homes, barns, and courthouses from native limestone that will stand for centuries. Unlike much of the western edge of the Edwards Plateau, this central region of the Hill Country escaped the extreme degradation of overgrazing that occurred during the early and mid-1900s, a calamity brought on by drought, goats and sheep, and poor land management practices. Thus, a good portion of its character and its biology has been well conserved. The Wolf Mountain Trail leads hikers through portions of the park’s woodland habitat where dry creek crossings and an occasional vista into deep, aqua-colored water holes alternate with stretches of oak and juniper stands. The trail layout requires hikers to traverse the same 1.8-mile portion at the beginning and end of the hike in order to access the more remote interior. You can hike through some of the finest Texas Hill Country in the state, then travel to another section of the park and take a dip in the clear, spring-fed Pedernales River. The trail begins off the park road just below the headquarters. The trail is actually an old jeep road and accommodates mountain bikers as well as hikers. After crossing Mescal Creek, turn left and you reach the primitive camping area, about 1.8 miles from the trailhead. The camping area sits above the Pedernales River where steep and abrupt limestone bluffs drop into the sloping drainage, a heavily wooded terrace of pecan, walnut, sycamore, and elm. While the river can be heard from atop the bluffs, the dense canopy, at eye level from the campsite, blocks the view. The trail’s namesake Wolf Mountain can be seen above and behind the camping area. The next crosses Tobacco Creek, then traveling between the Pedernales River and Tobacco Mountain. It makes a turn at Jones Spring and circles back around the back side of Wolf Mountain, then rejoins the same route taken from the trailhead at the Mescal Creek crossing. While there is no swimming allowed along the Pedernales Falls section of the river, after completing the hike you may want to drive across the park to see the falls and swim at the river beach near the main camping area. Pedernales Falls is actually a smooth, limestone terrace where the elevation of the river drops almost 50 feet. You’ll obtain a better understanding of the sheer force of the water flowing down the Pedernales once you see its hydrodynamics in action. The limestone riverbed carries a tremendous amount of clear, fresh water along its course, and the entire region is prone to sudden and life-threatening flash floods. This, of course, is no different along any other waterway, but the Pedernales, in particular, is fierce—an incredibly beautiful but dangerously unpredictable river.