A grove of oak trees deep on the Woodland Trail at Inks Lake State Park in Burnet County. While much of the trail was burned in a 2018 wildfire, leaving it open country, the deep stretches of the trail are still thick with old growth trees. Staff photos by Dakota Morrissiey
In Texas, fall and winter usher in glorious hiking weather, the perfect seasons to take on the Woodland Trail at Inks Lake State Park in Burnet County. The trail is one of the longest and most breathtaking hikes in the Highland Lakes.
Inks Lake State Park on Park Road 4 hugs the shores of Inks Lake, one of the smaller lakes in the Highland Lakes chain. The park dominates the southeast border of the lake, stretching across 1,200 acres of prime Texas Hill Country habitat.
The Woodland Trail covers 2.2 miles of the 9 miles of hiking trails that snake through the park; however, it can only be reached by trekking down half of the Lake Trail or taking on the entirety of the Pecan Flats Trail. At a minimum, you’re traveling 3 miles, but if you’re up for it, you can turn the Woodland Trail into a robust 5-mile hike that takes you through the best of Inks Lake State Park.
My brother-in-law, Tim Osbourn, and I decided to explore the trail ourselves and see where it led. Our hike began in the late afternoon at the head of the Lake Trail, an initially mild path that leads through dense brush along the shoreline but eventually spills out into the open, wrapping around an enormous gneiss outcropping covered in rugged Hill Country vegetation.
“This is some of the oldest rock that you can find in Texas and the entire world,” said Jamie Langham, the Inks Lake State Park interpreter.
Langham’s job is to educate visitors on the natural and cultural resources of the park. She explained that the massive rock formations around the lake are mostly made up of 1.25-billion-year-old gneiss, a type of rock formed from molten layers of minerals that fused together as they cooled. To the untrained eye, gneiss and granite might look identical, but Langham used an analogy that made it easy for me to grasp and remember: Gneiss is layered like cake; granite is chunky like rocky road ice cream.
The Lake Trail alone gives you a decent feel for the park. We watched wading birds stalk through the shallows near the shore, ducked through cedar-strewn tunnels, and scrambled up billion-year-old rock formations before even setting foot on the Woodland Trail.
The Lake Trail can be completed in less than an hour, even at a leisurely pace, and the road is never far away. I wanted to get deeper into the park, away from the sounds of outboard motors on the lake and rumbling engines on Park Road 4. I like to think I’m a fast hiker, so I told Tim we would probably be done with the whole hike in under two hours.
The Lake Trail ends at the edge of the road, requiring a quick crossover to reach the Woodland Trail. You’d have trouble noticing it if you didn’t know what you were looking for, but the path was there, marked in blue. Mercifully, most of the trails in the park are color coded. Personally, I enjoy getting lost, but not everyone has time to wander around the woods for a few unplanned hours.
According to Langham, the Woodland Trail is one of the least-taken paths in the park. A 3- to 5-mile hike through unknown country can take a while, and the heat of summer can repel even avid hikers, meaning you aren’t likely to run into anyone while you’re out there. She heavily recommended bringing water if you plan to hike on a hot day. Luckily, Tim and I were tackling the trail in the fall and the sun was already low in the sky when we began.
At its head, the Woodland Trail is tame. A gentle path putters through open rolling hills coated in swaying grass and stubby trees. Wildfire engulfed this portion of the park in 2018 and burned 300 acres. The charred remains of larger trees still peppered the landscape on our hike.
The sounds of the road faded as we strolled through a prairie-like plain. A few scattered boulders dotted our path, which seemed to slowly lead toward a stand of larger trees that escaped the blaze.
The small forest at the far end of the Woodland Trail made the whole trip worth it. Tim pointed out that it felt like we were in a fantasy world. The trees seemed to grow to proportions rarely seen in the Texas Hill Country. Not many old-growth forests escaped the axes of early settlers. Much of the surrounding country must have once looked just like this. Huge old cedars, oaks, and pecans formed a tight canopy overhead, enhancing the approaching darkness.
I don’t recommend this, but I typically hike in flip-flops, and I might have underplayed the difficulty and duration of the hike when I invited Tim along, so he was also decked out in sandals. The sun was setting surprisingly quickly. In the low light, we were moving comically slowly over a few granite outcroppings, and I began to think that we’d be hiking back in darkness.
By the time we popped out of the forest, the sun was below the horizon and we were shuffling down the trail. I couldn’t help but laugh, thinking about how our expected less-than-two-hour hike had somehow stretched into a four-hour journey. We both dreamed aloud of grabbing a drink at Wakepoint LBJ in Kingsland once we were back on the road.
This is the sort of outdoors experience that I cherish. Trudging through the dark and cursing the cactus you’re kicking are the details that turn a typical hike into a real memory.
“You only experience something a certain way once, so do it to the fullest,” Tim told me when I asked him about the hike. “It was very simple. I think it’s a nice introduction to hiking.”
The Woodland Trail might take longer than you’d think, but it is a beautiful hike that showcases some of the best scenery the Highland Lakes has to offer. Take advantage of the cooler weather and get lost on the trail in the fall and winter.
Inks Lake State Park is a Texas State Park located at 3630 Park Road 4 in Burnet County. Call 512-793-2223 for more information. Day-use fee is $7 for ages 13 and older. Children 12 and younger get in free.
