I’ve been looking for a while for a pair of shoes that I could walk into water with and walk home without a big soggy 5lb. mess wrapped around my feet. I finally found what I was looking for–Merrell Waterpro Ultra-sport. I’ve already got a good pair of sandals, which are hella nice in the water, but the fact of the matter is that a sandal doesn’t wrap your foot, and can’t provide as much toe protection or climbing ability as an enclosed shoe. I spent a good bit of last summer walking in and out of Gus Fruh with a broken toe, and I can tell you that it’s not any fun at all in a shoe that lets your foot slip and slide around. Aside from that, sandals are heavy, and–this is debatable–sometimes seem to leave my feet sorer at the end of a long day of hiking. So I definitely wanted a closed shoe that was impervious to water. This one has mostly waterproof materials, except for some neoprene around the back of the heel, and it has drain vents at the lowest part of the toe, which is nice and thick and provides good rock protection. There’s even a kind of compression strap system that can be used to adjust the shoe fit. Unfortunately, this ups the shoe maintenance, because if it’s too lose, your heel comes down on the inside of the footbed and slopes inward, which makes the shoe feel awkward and starts to hurt pretty quickly.
After a good 9 mile hike yesterday, I can definitely confirm that the Waterpro is da bomb. It’s a shoe that the manufacturer claims is designed for canyoneering, which pretty much describes greenbelt hiking to a tee. It certainly did the job for me. In search of a way to get to the Greenbelt without taking two buses, I looked at some satellite imagery and noticed that the far end of Westlake boulevard appeared to dead end into wilderness crossed by various tracks. When I arrived on-site, however, it was posted by the Austin water department as a water quality management area. Noting a few nice looking trails on the other side, I snuffaluffagussed and later found myself walking around through some random chaparral, including one large clearing that had the biggest damned prickly pear cacti (don’t ask me the correct name) I’ve ever seen. They were large. I followed various trails, dirt access roads, water drainages, and other fairly clear walking paths westward for a while until I ran out of luck and trail, at which point I started hiking cross country, which was pretty hard core spikey chaparral. I most certainly did not cross any private property, no matter what anybody may tell you.
After some while looking for downhill slopes, I found one that got progressively steeper, and followed it to a creekbed, which I knew had to lead, in turn, to Barton Creek. This is where the shoes started to earn their pay, and they did a pretty good job of it, giving me significantly better traction that I’ve had with most other shoes during some significant vertical scrambles over rocks and sometimes dirt. They’ve got some pretty deep lugs that are good for catching the edges of rocks, and some pretty soft rubber that grabs like hell. I’m sure it’ll be smooth as a baby’s ass in six months, but for the moment, it makes life easy.
After some while of hiking down and around the creekbed, which kept running into these pretty stunning-looking sinkholes that did not at all lend themselves to photography (I need to get a wider-angle lens), I came to a little wooden bridge, and, climbing onto it, found myself on a very Austin Parks and Recreation-looking trail. 40 minutes from the end of the road to the start of the belt. I’ve got to find something faster, especially since the place you get dumped isn’t all that convenient to anywhere.
I suspected that I’d find the 360 access and bridge to my left/north, and wasn’t disappointed. After setting a waypoint at the trail head (see the foretrex bit below), I headed south and hiked around the bend of the river until I found myself under the Mopac bridge that spans the greenbelt. I never realized how humungously huge these bridges are until I stood underneath them. They’re ludicrously big. Amazing.
I went up to the Mopac access to set a waypoint, then headed toward Twin falls. There was quite a bit of water there, so I chilled for a while before heading down to Sculpture, where there was plenty of water. I didn’t get to set foot in it, though, because no sooner had I arrived than Travis called to tell me he was at Twin. I ran most of the way back and made it in 16 minutes.
I also had a Garmin Foretrex 201 with me on this trip, but it’s likely to be back at the store for a couple of reasons by the time you read this: mostly I just can’t afford it right now, but it also runs on an integrated lithium battery, which makes it pretty useless on a multi-day hike, which I hope to need it for. Also, I’d like something I can download topos to.
Finally, on my way out via Mopac, I discovered I’d lost my phone, and had to walk all the way back to Twin to get it. Some guy named John Paul had found it and made me write a haiku about it in his book of poems from random people. I wrote:
I lost my cell phone
On a big rock at Twin Falls
John Paul found it–thanks!
I should have written “On a big sunny rock at Twin Falls”, to reference summer, but I didn’t think about it until later. Hindsight’s always 20/20 I suppose.
I was more in it for the hike than the pics, but I took a few.
