Last week, I shared all about the first part of my long weekend camping trip to Garner State Park with my childhood friend, Smitty. I mentioned in that post that you would have to come back to see what we got into on our second full day, so lets dive in!

I’ve mentioned in previous blogs that I have the goal to visit all of the state parks across Texas. There are 94! With a very long list of places to explore ahead of me (in my home state alone), sometimes it is beneficial to hit more than one spot in a single trip. So that’s just what we did.

After the long day of hiking almost 14, relatively steep, miles throughout Garner, I presented Smit with the idea of venturing away from the park to check out Kickapoo Caverns. This state park is the smallest of all the state parks in Texas, and sits about 45 minutes from the border of Mexico. What sealed the deal for Smitty was when I shared with him that Kickapoo Caverns is home to a colony of up to one million Mexican free-tailed bats that launch every night.

Texas is one of the battiest states in the country with 32 of the 47 different bat species calling the state home! There are 12 locations around the state where you can go to watch this nightly spectacle, and the Stuart Cave inside Kickapoo Caverns State Park is one of them.

Smitty and I checked the radar for the day, (in Texas, the weather can literally change in an instant, but its always a good idea to check and be aware of any known possibilities). We enjoyed a camp side breakfast of eggs and bacon, made sure camp was organized and ready for our return that evening since we would be away the whole day and probably wouldn’t return until after dark. The weather showed a zero chance of rain for the day, and even said we would have full sun. Knowing that the further south we ventured the more likely we would be without tree coverage for shade, we grabbed extra water, hopped in Smitty’s truck and headed down the road.

The views on the backroads between Garner and Kickapoo were gorgeous! We arrived in Brackettville and grabbed lunch before going inside the park to fill the day with some more hiking before launch time. After checking in with the rangers, and being warned about feral hogs in the area, we grabbed a trail map and our water bladders and got on our way. We didn’t really have a plan other than to check out as much of the park as possible before sun down so we could get to the launch site for the show. Being that this park is very small, we figured we would be able to see most of it while we killed time.

All along the trail, the grasses were well above our heads except for the evidence of hogs bedding down and rooting around that popped up pretty frequently along our chosen path. While Smitty seemed very calm and collected, I on the other hand became extremely vigilant, wondering if a pack of hogs was going to emerge from the tall grass right on top of us.

We were a couple miles in when the sky began to get a little grey. At first we just figured we would have the luck of getting caught in a nice little rain shower to cool us off. As we continued on, however, the sky became more ominous, and thunder started rolling in. We thought we were pretty close to a connecting trail that would loop us back, so we decided to venture on.

Before we knew it, we were caught in a full on Texas thunderstorm! The rain was coming down in sheets, and with hardly any trees at all, there was nothing to stand under for some shelter to try and wait it out. Since we hadn’t made it to the connecting trail yet, and not knowing how long this thunderstorm ( that wasn’t even on the radar) would last, we made the decision to turn around and go back the way we came.

This trail required us to cross over washouts that were previously dried up. However, with this flash storm, water was quickly collecting and small rivers were beginning to form. Im sure all of you are familiar with how flash floods happen. Due to drought conditions, when an large amount of rain is dumped, the ground is too dry to soak it up so it has nowhere else to go but create raging rivers! So naturally this is where my mind was now. At least I was no longer worried about walking up on some unsuspecting feral hog!

We clocked almost 6 miles that day, more than half of which were in a torrential downpour. By the time we made it back to the truck, we were completely soaked from head to toe. There literally wasn’t a single dry spot on our clothing. We even had water sloshing around inside our boots. With the storm forcing us to turn back, we found ourselves at the truck still with several hours to kill before the bats would launch. Smitty was ready to call it, but we had already driven all that way, so I convinced him to stay long enough for our clothes to dry out so we weren’t sitting on his truck seats wet.

There we were, stripping down to our underwear in the parking lot of Kickapoo Caverns State park and laying our clothing out on the sidewalk in hopes that the sun would dry everything out. I was so thankful that I thought to throw one of my sun protective shirts from Free Fly in my day pack just in case I wanted a little relief from the sun. It was nice to have something dry, and even warm, to put on while the rest of my things dried out. After standing there in our skivvies for what seemed like forever, I finally had the thought to check if the bathroom had hand dryers, which they did, so we grabbed everything up and went in our prospective sides to try and speed up the drying process.

By the time our clothes were dry enough to put back on, enough time had passed for us to stay and catch the bat launch. We moved the truck over to the launch site and made our way up the path to the cave opening. Let me tell you what, there is no denying that you are in the right place because the smell will quite literally knock you over and make your eyes water. You do get used to it after a while though.

While we waited, we enjoyed watching the sun go down, painting the sky in soft colors, and a few other people joined us. Other than the rangers when we first checked in, these were the only people we saw the entire time we were there.

One of the couples there were actually the current park hosts for Kickapoo Caverns. They had great information for us while we waited for the bats to take off. They informed us that you know its about to happen because the swallows come first. Right at sundown, a flock of barn swallows swooped in like speeding demons and took to their mud nests on the cave walls right inside the mouth. Just a few moments later, we began to hear them, and before we knew it 1 million bats were storming out of Stuart Cave like billowing smoke from a chimney ready to feast on their nightly dinner in the sky!

It was absolutely incredible both in sight and sound! Never in my life had I witnessed something like this. It was like a dance! With an estimated one million bats in this colony, you can experience this wonderful wildlife moment through almost all of the senses! I closed my eyes for a while, and let my body tune in to the vibrations from their wings as they came flying from the cave and danced around us in the sky before taking to their route. This was an incredible way to end our weekend. . . getting to check off a Texas sized bucket list experience!

Have you ever watched a bat launch? If so, share your experience in the comments!

Tips for visiting Kickapoo:

• This colony of bats are seasonal and usually live in the cave from mid-March through October.
• There are not alot of shade options, so avoiding summer months might be a good idea
• There are roughly 15 miles of trails, so bring your water, sunscreen, and hiking boots!
• Kickapoo Caverns is home to over 20 known caves, but to protect the caves and creatures who live in them, entry is by guided tour only. If exploring the caves is something you are interested in, make sure to visit on a Saturday. This is the only day you can schedule a tour.
• Bring a headlamp or flashlight with a red light feature. The bats need the lights to be out, so having a red light feature wont interfere with their needs while also helping you make it safely back to your vehicle.
• Be patient. Bats are wild and on their own schedule. Launch times are approximate
• Even though this park is small, it is mighty with several things to peak any outdoorsman/woman’s interest, and with several camping options, it would be very easy to spend a long weekend in this park alone