Inks Lake is up in Burnet, TX, about 90 minutes northwest of Austin. It’s one of the only two parks in Texas that actually makes money. That’s because it’s ENORMOUS.
I got there on a Thursday early evening and left Sunday morning. I should have left before the weekend really got started. It was a holiday weekend and that meant it was a party park. It was bananas.
GEAR
I took my Coop Passage 2 and my regular cook and sleep setups. It rained and I stayed bone dry. I brought a beach umbrella I stuck in the ground to hang out under and was glad I did – it fended off the sprinkling rain when that happened, and gave us a bit of shade at the picnic table, which was kind of punishing around lunchtime.
CAMPGROUNDS
The park has over 300 sites that wind all around the shores of Inks Lake. It’s got a general store on the property where you can rent floats, get some basic (non-vegan) food supplies, rent kayaks or canoes, rent fishing gear too, I think. The general store has a nice covered deck off the back that looks out onto the water – to hang out on if it’s raining.
I started out at site #84, which I loved right up until the giant family reunion took over #85 and all the small cabins across from #84. They came over to warn me they were going to be loud and invasive, and 20 minutes later yelled across the park asking if I wanted some bananas. I couldn’t find the funny or the chill, so the next day I moved down to #90, which was right on the water, but pretty small and had no tree for shade. It also had a neighbor who had set their huge canopy up in #90’s lakefront… They left the next day and then I had a just crazy family of people who hated each other. They ended up changing sites and two incredibly sporty and crazy in love extremely screamy girls moved in next door. They invited me to party with them and then played this weird-ass irish/country music really loud until about 2am. Nobody did anything about it. It just happened. Not a park host in sight.
There’s one section of the lake that’s designated a “no wake area” and that’s where Devil’s Waterhole is.
HIKING / SWIMMING
Because of my ankle, I didn’t really bother looking at the trails, but it appears there are some decent very short hikes at this park.
The swimming is where it’s at. I highly recommend bringing a float and spending an afternoon floating around Devil’s Waterhole, then going up to the waterfall nearby and swimming there. You can also just swim wherever in Inks Lake – but I didn’t really see people doing much swimming. It made me think I shouldn’t be, but I did anyway.