A few hours paddling the San Marcos River is a great way to spend a Saturday morning. My family loaded our kayaks before sunrise and drove roughly an hour south to Luling, Texas, to paddle the Luling Zedler Mill Paddling Trail.
The San Marcos River is a spring-fed river that originates at the San Marcos Springs (now under Spring Lake) of the Edwards Aquifer in San Marcos (GPS: 29.89165327542958, -97.93224851538149) and continues until it combines with Guadalupe River near Gonzales. Being a spring-fed river, the water remains fairly cool year-round (around 72 degrees is what I’ve seen mentioned online), so it was nice to dip our hands in the water to cool off a bit, especially as the temperatures increased as midday approached near the end of our trip.
Southwest Paddler provides information on the 46-mile stretch from the river’s origins down to Luling, recommending a minimum flow rate of 150 CFS for paddling and noting that an ideal rate is 200-350 CFS. We paddled the river at 146 CFS, and it took us three hours to complete the trip. You can check CFS on a number of gauges, including Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s (TPWD) river gauge and the USGC’s national water system interface. Not applicable to the San Marcos, but just an FYI: for the lower Colorado River and its tributaries in Texas, the LCRA’s river gauge is a great resource. Finally, our very first blog post discussed some of the logistics in planning a paddling trip, so be sure to check that out if you’re new to paddling or interested in trying it.
This stretch of river is an official TPWD Paddling Trail that runs from River Trail Park at the Highway 90 crossing (GPS: 29.668202687179953, -97.69915926943274) and ends at the Texas Paddling Trail park off Highway 80 across the river from Zedler Mill (GPS: 29.66443423207701, -97.65375579961056). The TPWD site says it is a six-mile paddle, but we took out at the first of two boat ramps (details below) and our GPS said we’d been paddling about 5.25 miles. TG Canoe and Kayaks published a video on YouTube showing the several public access points from San Marcos to Luling, with the put-in and take-out points for the stretch of river we paddled starting at time stamp 19:13. TPWD also has a YouTube video from 2009 showing portions of the paddling trail soon after it opened, while this YouTube video from 2018 shows a more recent view of the river.
There are plenty of spots to park your vehicle for free at both the put-in and take-out, which makes it easy to get your boats into and out of the river without any lengthy carries. The put-in was on a gravel bar and you can pull your car down by the river to unload your boats, so it very easy (and clean) to get onto the river. At the take-out, there are two boat ramps – one directly across from the mill (see here) and the other just under half-a-mile up-river (see here). We took out at the up-river ramp from the mill, which was very soft and muddy at the end of the ramp (your feet will sink into the mud several inches) – so bring an extra pair of shoes / sandals to change into at the end of your paddle.
The river snakes along with lots of bends — though there are also a few longer straight sections. It’s a fairly calm stretch of river with smooth water much of the time and minor rapid sections – more riffles than rapids — every now and then (mostly in the first couple of miles). The only challenge is the various logs and stumps that you encounter along the way.
Speaking of snakes, we came across five on the trip – four looked like non-venomous water snakes while the fifth we didn’t get near but wondered if it could have been a cottonmouth. The other animal life we saw included cows, a couple great blue herons and a racoon.
One of the best features of this 5-6-mile stretch is the tree-canopied sections of which there are several. Not only do they provide a break from the sun, but they also offer beautiful scenic views – and most of this paddling trail is lined by trees even when they don’t canopy the river.
Much of the river in this section has higher cuts banks, so there aren’t many places that you can easily / legally stop for a break. There are a few options, but the banks tend to be muddy and there was only one or two small gravel islands in the middle of the river that we saw. We stopped at one of them (as seen above) for a few minutes to stretch our legs, and we were wishing there had been another one toward the end of the paddle when our backs were feeling a bit sore. Whether you’re paddling an official paddling trail like this one or not, be sure to familiarize yourself with your state’s navigability laws regarding legal usage of the river and its banks – and having a printed copy of the most relevant statutes is a good idea.
It’s not a fast-flowing river unless there have been heavy rains, so it’s easy enough for the average paddler. Even so, you’ll pass a good bit of debris to navigate around, particularly as you come around the various bends, so you have to remain alert. Unless you’re a more skilled paddler, I’d say you should not try this part of the river when the CFS levels are above 350 – and this isn’t a river I’d recommend for your very first paddling trip, either. We are not experts by any means, but we have paddled enough to feel relatively competent on rivers. We started questioning our ability (and rethinking our decision to paddle this river) about two-thirds to three-quarters of a mile from the launch when we found the entire river filled with logs and limbs (pictured above from down-river after passing through the debris — it looked more gnarly from the up-river side). We weren’t in any danger, but it did cause some anxiety briefly since there was some current to deal with and there wasn’t a great way to stop and scout. After trying one route and having to backtrack, we found a narrow gap to navigate through the logs. After that, we did paddle through other sections of debris, but nothing like that section.
If you’re looking for the excitement of rapids, you’ll want to go elsewhere – either the upper sections of the San Marcos, the Guadalupe or the Llano would be good options in Central Texas. But for a relaxing paddle (save for that one section I noted) with lots of nice scenery, this paddling trail is a good choice.
We will likely do it again, and I would recommend it to anyone with some experience paddling rivers who is looking for a calm morning on the water. And after you’re done, you should take a little time to explore Luling, including visiting the Zedler Mill that is across the river from the boat ramps at the paddling trail takeout.
Dawes Outdoors 