Eisenhower Park in San Antonio, Texas

On Sunday I did the Vista Loop at the Eisenhower park.
I did it one and a half times, as I just had the energy and the Vista Loop is just 3.5 miles long.

The Eisenhower Park is located north of town right before Camp Bullies outside of Loop 1604.
It has plenty of parking and also a nice playground in case you are going with children.
Last but not least it has picnic tables and there are plenty of them as well.

But lets start with the hike.

Here is the map and the path I took. Th lower path I took twice, but on teh way back I first took the outer loop and at the end I took the path more to the middle as this is a shortcut to the parking lot and I ran out of water sometimes at the top.

But lets see how the path looks at different stages.

This is at the beginning of the trail, as you see it's flat and nothing to worry about at all.

It also shows that there isn't much shadow, so wear  head and get sunscreen.

We are heading north and it will go uphill. Again this is a quite nice trail but no shadow at all.
When you get to the end of that picture, you are almost at the little tower they have on top of the hill.
I haven't a picture of it, you need to go there yourself to see it.

We are going down hill and the path doesn't look bad if you ask me.

A little stepper then before but with good hiking shoes or hiking boots, you shouldn't have a problem at all.

This is a little later but also shouldn't be a problem at all if you watch your step.


As you saw from the pictures, this is a fairly easy hike with nothing to worry about. It doesn't has much shadow but we are in Texas and Texas isn't known for it's trees.
As I said before I would recommend one liter of water per hour hiking, and in general you need to calculate 3 miles per hour for beginners and later on you will know what mileage you can calculate form experience.

This hike as I did it was 7 miles long, it took me almost three hours and this included picture breaks and I drank 70 oz of water.
I also had a height difference of 700 feet in it.

The next hike I will do is in the Friedrich Wilderness park, just a couple of miles away from the Eisenhower park.

I hope you liked this one here and maybe I see you on the trail.

Water, Water, water....

It can't be said often enough, but water is very important when hiking. You need to drink plenty of it over the hike and start in the first minute and end a day after you finish the hike.

In general the body can only absorb one quart or about one liter of water per hour, so if you wait until you already lost that much is way to long as you won't be able to replenish it in time.

On my last hike at the Eisenhower park in San Antonio in 90 degrees weather I saw plenty of people that didn't carry any water or only 16 oz of water around.
Even worse, some had coffee with them.

While I love coffee, must be the German in me, I would never bring coffee on a hike as it will work against you.

On my 7 mile hike I drank 70 oz of water or about 2 liters. The hike was 2 hours and 51 minutes, so as I started drinking from the very start, I could have had 30 oz more, but my camelpak only holds 70 oz of water and I didn't replenish when I had the chance.

This of course is another problem, when you have the chance to get more water, take it and make sure you always have the maximum amount of water with you.

If it's very hot out there or you in general sweat a lot also bring salty food as you lose a lot of salt with sweating and you need too replenish that as well or you will get a water imbalance in your body and this isn't a fun thing to have.

I personally eat pretzels or other salty food in small doses.


I hope that hikers will take this to heart and start drinking the amount necessary to have a fun hike.

Light up the sky...

...or at east the path in front of you.
How much light is too much light?
Depending who you ask the answer will be that there is not too much light.

I have a couple of pictures from lights I use when I go hiking.

This are some of the lights I take with me.
People tend to take no flashlight with them when the hike is only for an hour or two, but you never know what happens, so I always have the head lamp, the LED one and the flash light with me.
Maye you planned for a short hike but you get injured and need to stay over night, or you help someone that got injured and it will take longer to get home.
No matter what the reason is, it's better to have one with you and never need it then to have none with you but need one. And a cell phone isn't a great flash light.

The strobe is something that can become useful when hiking in the mountains or in the back country and you get lost. As you told someone where you are going and when you will be back, the search teams should know the general idea you will be in, so just use it to let them know how to find you.

If you ahve questions just ask and I will be happy to tell you more about these items.

Hiking basics water

One of the main things you should have with you on a hike no matter if it's short or long is water.
I hiked with many people and I saw that Germans in the USA like to buy water bottles, something that isn't very cost effective or environmentally friendly, and they are such environmental friendly people in Germany.

Personally I have a Camelpak, actually I have a couple of them for different hikes from  60 oz to a 100 oz bladder, and for the longer ones in hot areas even two that gives me 200 oz of water.

I don't have anything in it, just pure water, so in case you need to use it for something else, like washing out a wound, you can do so without a problem.
Or give some to a fellow hiker that didn't bring as much as you did.


 This is my mule and it's is the 2009 model, so you won't find it anymore on the market.

I have some bigger ones but this one comes with a 60 oz or 2 liter bladder and with the space for the essentials for a half day of hiking.

 Yes I have an LED light on it at all times that has four colors and several modes. I used it a couple of times while night hiking in Arches NP so I could scout out the trail and my group could follow me.

This is my main pack for local hikes and in the next posting I will show you a couple of things that go with me on every hike.

And another hiking blog

Yes I started another hiking blog as there are many out there, but I will take you on some hikes and show you what I believe makes your hike a safe and awesome hike.
While everyone can walk around like a zombie, I want to introduce you to hiking and how to do it the right way.

I am in San Antonio, Texas but I did a couple of hikes world wide and will tell you about them over time.

But today we start with some hiking basics and tomrrow we will hike a local short 3 mile hike.