Photos shot for the March issue
One of March's State Park Wonders are descended from the last of the Southern Plains bison. In the mid-1990s, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department captured and transported these animals from Palo Duro Canyon's historic JA Ranch to Caprock Canyons.
Following the principles of Leave No Trace is not always easy but it's always rewarding. Whether that's picking up trash or helping with trail-building, leaving a place better that you found it means Texans can enjoy our parks for at least another 100 years.
History and the future are both ways we are celebrating state parks in 2023.
As the centerpiece of this exciting year, we are producing a special keepsake state park edition of the magazine in May, with at least 100 pages packed full of the history, the future, the people and the parks of the Texas State Park system.
We hope you get out to enjoy our state parks in this special year.
Camper Coffee
Experiencing the community of state parks through caffeine-inspired conversations across four corners of Texas.
There is this notion that nature without humans is idyllic. But I think how we interact with the land and how it shapes us is an infinitely more interesting story. Texans enjoy 89 state parks spread across the state's diverse ecoregions, and each has its own community of hardworking folks living on and caring for the land.
The first time I realized the value of community, I was in the second grade, and the Snyder Independent School District had just declared a snow day. That meant coffee with granddad and his cohorts. As each mug was filled from that retro-gold coffee pot, the stories flowed and the laughter rose like steam from the cups.
Watching them, a much younger me felt the warmth of human connection — and discovered that coffee is a great conversation catalyst.
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Let's Go Fishing
TPWD's leased river sites open opportunities to fish and paddle.
After launching kayaks on the Colorado River near Smithville, it didn't take long for the fish to start biting.
This stretch of river is known for quality largemouth bass fishing. Channel catfish are popular, too, and the world-record Guadalup bass was caught upstream from here. We didn't know what we'd catch.
My heartbeat quickened when I gelt a fish on the line, but the excitement was short-lived, unfortunately, when the fish made other plans and slipped away.
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Leave No Trace 2.0
As Texans rush to play outdoors, throughful action can minimize the impact on nature.
In his second term, Gov. Pat Neff hoped to convince the 38th Texas Legislature that Texas shouls join the growing national public-lands movement. He wanted to create a network of parks for the people of the state, and he even donated a piece of family land to get the process started.
"Nothing is more conducive to the happiness and contentment of a people, the state's most valuable asset, than for them to go back to nature where the bees hum, the birds sing, the brooks ripple, the breezes blow, the flower bloom and the bass bite." he said.
A century later, as Texas State Parks celebrate their centennial, Texans reap the rewards of Neff's grand public lands vision. From the beaches of the Upper Coast to the Panhandle's dramatic plains, generations of explorers have come to enjoy these landscapes. With such a great resource, of course, comes great responsibility, and taking care of our public lands in 21st-century Texas can be ... complicated.
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Keep Texas Wild
It's not just for kids. If you like nature-related topics in an easy-to-read format, you can find three years of our popular Keep Texas Wild issues and the teacher resources to go along with them.
