On the Road with Maya: Lost Maples State Park and warmer weather

Texas Red Oaks and a few maple along the East Trail

With San Antonio in our rear view mirror and all that crazy ‘Christmas traffic’ behind us we felt the tension leave our shoulders. A couple of weeks driving around in big cities had us in need of a nature ‘fix.’ Luckily, there was time for a quick visit to Lost Maples State Park before heading home to West Texas for the holidays.

A late changing Big Tooth Maple with red leaves

Lost Maples was past its ‘peak’ color as that usually occurs in early to mid-November. But we were pleasantly surprised that it was still so beautiful and colorful. This was less than a week before Christmas and there were still a few maples with red leaves on them and most of the Texas Red Oaks had turned scarlet red. A little more fall right before Christmas!

Monkey Rock, a unique limestone formation in the park

Our first night in the park the temperatures dropped into the low 20’s. However the next morning was sunny and warming up rapidly so we packed a lunch, laced up our hiking boots and went for hike along the East Trail. Not far into the hike we noticed something that at first glance looked like cotton stuck in the dead stalks of some plants along the trail. But a little closer examination revealed that it was really frost weed, a plant native to the hill country area of Texas.

Frost Weed

Frost weed is not a particularly outstanding or noticeable plant most of the time but the first hard freeze will split the stalk of the plant and the sap bursts out and freezes, often in beautiful shapes. Although not exactly a rare phenomena, the lovely frost weed ice sculptures aren’t something you see every day. We felt so lucky that the weather conditions were just right and we had so much fun looking for the little ice sculptures along the trail. Even Maya got into the act as she discovered that the frost weed “ice” was good to eat! (We did discourage that activity, not being sure how good the sap would be for her.) And then, in less than an hour the frost weed ice had disappeared. Who knows when we will get to see it again?

Maya munching on frost weed ice

Beautiful oak leaves

The rest of our time at Lost Maples was very restorative. We walked the better part of two days and it felt good after several weeks of not much physical activity. The days were sunny and the temperatures really warmed up after that first cold night. It was beginning to feel like the Texas winters we remembered. We were finally ready for Christmas…