Bastrop State Park

Lovely state park which depicts a part of the many fascinating cycles of nature. Since it was ravaged by fire several years ago, barren trees stretch across the landscape offering a unique viewing experience. It was very nicely sized for those hikers who enjoy miles worth of walking.
When my husband went to go buy the pass, two attendants were assisting one customer and they didn’t acknowledge him for 10 minutes even though he was blatantly in plain site in front of them. Also some of the trails are badly and confusingly marked. We mistakenly went off what we thought was part of the trail only to end up next to a small neighborhood with hyper dogs jumping on fences. So some slight improvements can be made
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Our walk was very peaceful and quiet. I found the trails to be easy/​average in intensity level with a rolling hill here and there. Very interesting and different park experience…

Visited Bastrop State Park for a hike with my family and couldn’t be more happy with the experience. We did the four mile loop and really enjoyed our time there. It’s a little sad to see the effects of fire on the park, but there’s new life popping up everywhere you look too. We will definitely return. Looks like a great place for a trail run.

I can only give a review of the pool and not the rest of the park.
I was skeptical that I was in the right place for the YMCA run pool when I pull into the entrance of the park and there’s no pool in sight. I stop in the first parking lot and go inside the first building with 3 kids in tow to find out. The park employees were super friendly and helpful. They assured me I was in the right place, gave me a map, highlighted where I needed to go and we were off.
The price for admission seemed reasonable. $ 3/​kid and $ 5 for me. They provide life vests for the kiddos for free.
The pool area had options for seating with shady areas and picnic tables. It was really beautiful. They have a shallow area that’s 2ft and gradually goes to 3ft. It was perfect for the 3-​year-​olds to stand in.
We were able to bring in a cooler and so I was able to have snacks and cold drinks.
They have lifeguards on duty. They take 10 minute breaks every hour as most pools do.
I would come back. My only wish is that it wasn’t on the east side of Bastrop.

Love this place! We are getting married here on September 26^th
Love the CCC refectory and all the trees…

Love this place. We try and camp here once a yr. Love the trails but between the fire in 2011 and flood in 2015 I would think the aminals would travel two x two ha ha ha. Can’t wait for the park to fully recover.

Lovely small camping area. Very clean facilities and grounds. This is a small camping area and that makes it very nice for spending quality time with your kids.

Scenic overview was sad to look at but the campsites are gorgeous, trees are beautiful. I loved the bathrooms they were very well kept and modern. I hope in a decade or so the park will be looking how it use to. Its absolutely worth going, we will be going back when its warmer to go canoeing and jump in the pool!

I surprised my boyfriend with a trip to Bastrop State Park for his birthday a few years ago. Rented a cabin, bought food to bbq, brought the fishing gear. To this date this is still one of the best trips we have ever taken. It was a perfect couples getaway.
We still come every couple of months to fish as the lake is great and as it is a state park there are always fish in the water. The trees and scenery are great and everything in the area is well maintained. Parts of the forest are still burned from the fire a few years ago and that’s sad to look at, but you can see the progress since then which is nice to watch.
I haven’t ever hiked or done anything other than fish, eat, and sleep, so I can’t speak to anything besides those things. But those three things, I love doing here.

We spent a few hours here today and unfortunately the trails go totally unmarked less then a third into them. I can say without a keen sense of direction its a set up for failure and getting lost. It is beautiful, I would suggest giving it a few more years to heal from the fires, it does not seem the park officials are not going to attempt much. :-(

We stayed in cabin 12 for the weekend and had a great experience. The cabin sleeps 8 in four separate bedrooms that open up on to a long patio. It has central air and heat, two bathrooms stocked with linens, and a full kitchen with a stove, oven, and refrigerator. Remember to bring your percolator though, since there’s no coffee maker. The L– shaped cabin faces the pond and has a little beach perfect for fishing, and a large fire pit.
If you’re planning on playing card games late at night around the big octagonal table, you’ll want to bring an additional light source, since it’s pretty dark inside the great room.
Much of the park is still coming back from a devastating fire that occurred years ago. But the park is still something to behold, my kids were fascinated at the sight of the fire damage, and excited to see how nature recovers.

This was our first time here, stayed four days, Thursday through Sunday in June, 2014. Relaxing, fun filled experience for myself and my little boy. There were many black tree stalks filling the woods but the new growth is about five feet or so now so there’s green life pushing it’s way up ! It’s still a beautiful, HUGE park. That said, the fire department did an excellent job of saving the park’s structures — all the cabins (and their surrounding trees), golf course, YMCA pool, etc. All trees around these structures are tall and green. Drove around the tent campground and it’s beautiful, bathrooms immaculate.
Ranger tips — cabins made with stone stay cooler, # 1 – 5. Lake access– cabins #1, 5, 10 – 12. # 1 has direct access.
**Rangers– they were incredibly helpful, knowledgeable and personable. Unfortunately for them, they are responsible for cleaning the cabins after people check out. I find this a shame. The cleaning service was cancelled by the state a few years ago. I did what I could and cleaned our kitchen spotless but couldn’t do the whole cabin. I would think a ranger’s talent is used more effectively elsewhere. Since the cabins stayed rented months in advance year round I think the state should raise the cabin/​campground rates slightly to cover the cost of a cleaning crew. Our cabin was immaculate upon arrival, thank you rangers !
Cabins–
quaint — we stayed in the 2 person (#2) stone cabin. Ranger let us look into a few
others that had just been vacated –just as nice as ours.
kitchen — Each has a small (maybe 3 feet tall ?) refrigerator with small freezer. Electric stove top– worked perfect as did the sink :) (no oven in any)
Bathroom — basic tub with shower, sink, toilet — all worked perfect. Towels and rags are provided. Left dirty ones outside cabin with a note asking for more and new ones were delivered that afternoon by the rangers.
Bedroom — very comfortable full size bed in ours (it’s the smallest cabin — for 2 people only). Linens, thin hotel type blanket, pillows provided (we brought our own blankets, pillows). Had bedside table, lamp, chest of drawers and an open closet.
living room — we had 2 big chairs in ours. This is where the a/​c unit is located as well. The unit works excellent ! it’s remote control accessed — easy and got cold :) fireplace looks great but to hot to use.
Ceiling fans in living room, bedroom worked great to circulate the cool air.
Back and front doors — we received a key but be warned that the doors will AUTOMATICALLY lock after about ten minutes !
in — ground grill in the backyard — worked great and has a fire pit area :)
YMCA pool — Really clean, a diving ‘plank’ (no diving board) that all the kids loved. Average size pool with 2 baby pools on either end of the pool that are completely separate from the main pool. Cash snack bar. Bathrooms have showers, clean. Lockers for storage near the entrance. Only problem is they don’t staff adequately for the summer — there was a wait list to get in Friday afternoon so Saturday i called to verify when the wait list was cleared (about 4). turns out people have birthday parties and bring in a lot of kids. on our Saturday they did have about 3 more lifeguards than Friday but seemed to be surprised they needed that many. it’s summertime, people are camping — what do they expect? Otherwise, a great experience !
Golf course — Lost Pines, really nice. The trees were saved from the wildfire so it’s beautiful, and hilly. You can play 9 or 18 holes. Carts are to be in by 8 p.m. We saw rabbits everywhere :) Friendly and helpful staff. Didn’t realize but we could have brought our own ice chest on the golf cart. Golf shop has everything — we bought some loose balls at a $ 1 a piece, waters, snacks, etc.
Lake– small but adequate for fishing and canoeing (we didn’t fish). We went to park ranger station at 9 a.m. saturday to reserve a canoe but all 4 had been rented for the entire day. We followed their advice and canoed at Buescher State park about 10 miles away. Our rangers were incredibly helpful buy confirming with Buescher that they had a competition on the lake finishing at noon so we didn’t’ waste our time going to early. That lake is HUGE, lots of greenery (this park didn’t burn so we did our nature walk there, too). It was our fist time canoeing EVER — canoe was good, life jackets and oars were provided (child under 12 mandated to wear one). Be warned — use lots and lots of bug spray !
Fees–
cabin rental fee (ours was 80 a night)
park entry fee $ 4 daily, under 12 free
ymca fee — $ 3 for adult, under 13 free
canoe rental — $ 5 per hour (2 hours was plenty for us)
golf course — we reserved online so got half price on Friday night — $ 15 for all 18 holes & use of golf cart (my son has his own clubs but those are no charge). $ 5 fee for me since i wasn’t golfing but I was riding:) If tee time is reversed at the shop it might be double.

We had such a good time this weekend at Bastrop State Park. We had our annual family reunion with folks in from all over Texas. We had hoped to go on the regularly scheduled nature hike with the park ranger, but they had arts and crafts planned instead. So Ranger Josh took out group of about 25 people ranging from 2 to 62 on private nature hike through Buescher. It was fun and Ranger Josh was great with the kids. We rented the Refectory and when we told the front station that the oven kept tripping the breaker, they sent 2 maintenance guys out within the hour. We can’t wait for next years reunion!

My family and I had a fun time. However, (and I know that the good people that work/​maintain the park can’t help this) about 80% of the park is still recovering from the fire a few years back. Also, we stayed at the «creekside campsite». The creek was more like a puddle and we could hear the freeway from our site. So if you’re looking for a place to camp for no more than a day, I would recommend bastrop.
One more thing that is very important! The employees are super friendly and the sites/​bathrooms are very clean!

The reason we liked this place was because we were alone in the whole campground; which is exactly what we were looking for… isolation from everybody else in the nature. The place is recovering from what was a huge fire couple of yrs ago, ideal for 1 – 2 days tops.

The incredible park is recovering from the devastating fire quite nicely, tons of new seedings are marked with pink flags everywhere. Beautiful architecture and CCC masonry, easy to see why this became a National Historic Landmark.

The 2011 wildfire that destroyed 96% of this park has brought new meaning to the ‘Lost’ Pines of Texas, which are the westernmost stand of loblolly pines in America, receiving 30% less rain than the Piney Woods of East Texas. The devastation remains, but there lingers a haunting beauty to the rolling hills of ashen pines that stretch as far as the eye can see. Perhaps in the spring the barrenness will be mitigated by ground cover. We went for trail running, and unfortunately even part of the 7.5 mile Lost Pines Trail has been lost and has yet to be re-​marked. Alternately, there’s a 12 mile road that connects Bastrop and Buescher State Parks (single entry fee), and somewhere in that stretch the trees return. The drive provided us a glimmer of hope for the once and future magnificence of this park.

It’s big. Really, really big. And full of trees. Endless trees. Sure, yeah, you say to yourself «duh, it’s a state park». But we drove for 15? 20? minutes on a road through the park, twisting and winding away, and we were still in it! (If you go far enough, BSP bumps up against another state park, but we didn’t travel in there.)
BSP is super peaceful, and I imagine when all the trees are growing like they will again in aftermath of the wildfires, it’s probably something to see. Which is not to say the sight of endlessly burnt trees isn’t something to see, it’s just a different kind of sight. Other folks might not like this park as much because it doesn’t seem nearly as group-​hangout-​friendly as some other parks. This is not to say there’s nowhere to hang out, just that the vibe of it seems more like a peaceful place to wander around on the hiking trails, or peer into the woods. The endless woods…
«And when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.»

There’s a scene in Fantasia 2000 where a Firebird spirit of destruction destroys a forest before the Spite of Spring returns growth to the land.* Even though I visited Bastrop State Park in the fall, Spring was slowly returning to the park out of the ashen aftermath of the 2011 wildfires.
There’s a shade of faith that accompanies seeing its recovery after the inconceivable magnitude of fire damage. Walking through Lost Pines Trail and Roosevelt’s Cutoff, the initial sight of blackened trees in all directions was sombering. Once I realized many of the trees were intentionally left standing meant they were believed to have a chance of recovery, there was a great surge of hope for these survivors. Further along the trail, I began to see a fair amount of birds who have built new homes, bright green moss to pad the once roughened ground, mushrooms growing from the roots of black trunks, berries sprouting and many ant mounds. Life, in its fragile beginning stages, is taking hold here, and I can’t wait to see it return in full bloom this Spring.
*Fantasia 2000 scene here:

I went here back in 2008 before the massive fire and then went again in October 2012 (post fire). We stayed at the Creekside Campsite. It offers no water or electricity and unfortunately it is quite a hike to the nearest bathroom or shower. I had to drive every time I wanted to use the bathroom, which was a bit annoying (which was located at Copperas creekside, the next campsite over).
The damage from the fire was apparent pretty much everywhere on the hikes and trails and at the campsites. It will be years and years before it even gets close to being the same park it was. It is kind of pricey to camp here because you have to pay for admission and camping ($ 48 for 3 of us to camp 2 nights). Ouch!
The showers leave something to be desired, one of them were broken, and the only remaining one was like a hose (the nozzle was removed from the shower) and the temperature knob was broken, so it made it challenging to turn on and off or adjust the temperature (which by the way was lukewarm).
But I still give it three stars because what do you expect? It’s a campground, you are supposed to be «roughing it» otherwise, you’d stay at a hotel, right? Plus, there is a variety of trails for all hiking levels so people from all walks of life can enjoy.

I am happy to report that Bastrop State Park has risen from the ashes of last years Labor Day wildfires! It looks a lot different with all the bare Pine Trees but thanks to all the recent rain the grass, flowers and wild ferns are growing and everything is green. Some areas look surreal with the new growth and bare wood but so beautiful and a reminder that nature is everlasting.
For those who were living under a rock last September 96% of this 6613 acre park was destroyed in the fire. Pictures posted today were from the most devastated area 8 months later.