Lost Maples State Park is a quiet and isolated small 2174 acre park located on the Sabinal River and is known for it's strands of bigtooth maple trees. The park has steep, rugged limestone canyons, springs, plateau grasslands, wooded slopes, and clear streams. The Park has an isolated stand of uncommon Uvalde Bigtooth Maple (the largest strand east of the Guadalupe Mountains) and when the seasons change, the foliage is unbelievable with a dazzling show of fall colors – the best time of the year is generally the last two weeks of October through the first two weeks of November. The scenery is beautiful but the park gets very busy and parking is limited to 250 cars. Try to visit during the weekday when it is not so busy.
Lost Maples State Park is also home to a number of rare birds like the Green Kingfisher, the endangered Black-capped vireo, and the Golden-cheeked warbler. You'll also likely to spot a variety of wild animals including gray fox, white-tailed deer, armadillo, raccoon, bobcat, javelina, and rock squirrel.
We come to Lost Maple State Park to enjoy the beautiful scenery and camping with campfire stories and smoores. After a hardy breakfast we will lace up the boots and hit the trails for a few hours of hiking.
The Maple Trail is a short level path through wooded clearings along the river, past some maples, and back along a more open sunny route. The East Trail is a 4.6 mile loop along Can Creek and you'll find small lakes, some steep cliffs, 300 foot climbs, and scrub covered plateaus as you head back home along the Sabinal River. The West Trail is a little over 4 miles and also follows Can Creek but further upstream across some hilly terrain and then down a canyon to another tributary canyon before rejoining the East Trail.
Near By:
Nearby Lost Maples State Park you'll find Garner State Park, Hill Country State Natural Area, Kerrville-Schreiner Park, Camp Verde, Lake Medina, and the towns of Utopia and Bandera. Bandera is the "Cowboy Capital of Texas" and has some ok restaurants, some dude ranches, a golf course, water park, and lots of fun and lively honky tonks. Kerrville isn't that far away and has good golf courses, shopping, restaurants, tubing on the river, and more. All of roads into and out of Lost Maples make for some very scenic drives.
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