00:00

You're listening to better outside a Texas Parks and Wildlife production this season was brought to you by WHOLE EARTH provision company. I'm your host, Morgan O'Hanlon, and I'm David yoskowitz, executive director of Texas Parks and Wildlife in our last episode, I took you out to East Texas for a tough ruck through the mud. This time, we're going west to the Devils River, where I'll take you out on a different kind of adventure. I can't wait to tell you more. Just after this break,

00:31

Whole Earth provision company has been helping Texans roam wild and free since 1970

00:37

whether you're road tripping through the Hill Country, catching a sunrise and Enchanted Rock or planning a Summer Park hop. They've got what you need to do it right. Think sun protective shirts, trail tested sandals, packable hats and water bottles that actually keep your drinks cold, traveling light. They've got carry ons, duffels and gear bags from the names you trust, and if you forgot your shades or backup charger? Well, they've got those too. Visit one of their six Texas stores or shop 24/7 at Whole Earth provision.com

01:13

David, have you ever heard of a type two adventure? Morgan, I have not. So can you describe it for me? A Type Two adventure is an activity that isn't so fun while it's happening, but it's pretty fun to reflect on afterward. So this is often characterized by discomfort, challenge and maybe a bit of a struggle, but the lessons and experiences gained from type two adventures, or type two fun can make it feel very rewarding in retrospect. So have you ever been out on this type of adventure? Well, Morgan, I actually have. It was my college roommates after we graduated, we took a trip on the Saco River in Maine. It was late spring and the river was flooding. Now, what that means when the river was flooding is that it basically filled in all the woodlands. So we decided to go ahead and go forward anyways. We'd already planned the trip. We'd already bought all the food, packed everything up. The outfitter that was going to shuttle us back and forth looked at us and said, Are you sure you want to do this? And we said, we're here. We got to do it. So we did it. We think many times we actually lost the main channel of the river, but we eventually found ourselves towards the end. We got picked up. We made it safely out of the river. There was nobody else the whole time on it. We had the whole river to ourselves, and it was a great adventure. Looking back on it, anything you'd do differently in retrospect,

02:47

probably not. I think even nowadays, I think I'd probably still take that little trip, that little adventure, it was good time to spend with friends. Were you well prepared enough for it? You think we were? We packed plenty of food. We had our life vests. We were strong rowers, so we were in good condition to make a go of it. Yeah, I think preparation is really key to making this type of experience go smoothly and make sure everybody has a good time. And I'm about to put my mom through a similar experience. So since I took a group of friends out to the devil's river back in 2021 she's been asking me to take her there too. She saw the pictures of that really pretty water, and was like, I need to go there. You know, Morgan, we just opened up another unit of the Devils River State Natural Area. It's called the Dan a Hughes unit, and it's about 14 miles downriver from the Del Norte unit. That's right. And in fact, that's the other reason why we're going on this trip. Me and a couple of women from the magazine wanted to test out the new self shuttling option between these two units. That's great. Yeah, I'm very excited to try it out and see what happens. But I'll tell you, I'm a little nervous about bringing my mom for two reasons. So the first being, she's not particularly outdoorsy. I think she's maybe camped three or four times in her life. And the other reason the devil's river is known for being one of the most unforgiving waterways in the state of Texas, it's extremely remote, practically in the desert, and prone to flash floods and heavy downpours. I think she'll do totally fine, but I really want her to enjoy herself, and I don't want to scare her away from future camping experiences. Well, I think you're doing all the prep work that you need to, and you know she's going to be fine coming out of it. We'll see how it goes. I mean, she's really an optimistic person, so I think she'll make it okay. Well, I can't wait to hear how it goes. Me too, David and I think I'm ready to find out what happens when we go outside. You.

05:12

Out before we get on the water, I want to talk with someone who can help me plan my trip, so I called up one of the superintendents at the park to give me the inside scoop.

05:22

I am Kevin Stafford. I'm the site superintendent of the Daniel and Hughes unit of the Devils River State Natural Area. We are located about 20 miles north of Del Rio, so we're down on the southern Texas border. Now it does take a little over an hour to get out here. It's not a straight shot from Del Rio, but we are just up the Devils River from Lake Amistad, and we actually share our southern border with that lake.

05:48

And what's special about the Devils River State Natural Area, like, what is there to do out there? What's the main attraction? Well, the name of the State Natural Area is really the main attraction. The Devils River is a spring Fred River. It is the most pristine river way in Texas, and it's a deep canyon that the spring Fred river flows through. We have low traffic through it, so it's not the bumper to bumper inner tubes like the Guadalupe River and stuff in Central Texas. We have several endangered species in the river that we are trying to preserve and protect, and it gives you that field of wild Texas. What Texas used to be like, pre development, when you say it's pristine, what do you mean? Like? Is it just really clear water? Is it really clean water? When I say pristine, I'm talking about water quality and kind of human impact onto it. We don't have a lot of development out here. There are the old traditional ranches surrounding it, but these are big ranches. They've been families for a long time. There are some river cabins and stuff, but there's very minimal human impact. The water that is feeding the devil rivers is coming out of springs. So it's all spring fed. If you think about the Big Springs, like in New Braunfels or in Austin that come out of the Edwards doctor, we're similar here, but we are in a low human population area, so the water is extremely clean. We don't recommend people drinking it and stuff like that, because it hasn't been chlorinated. But to be honest, it is probably one of the cleanest waters we have in Texas. What's the difference between a State Natural Area and a state park? Is that important? It is important. The main goal of Texas Parks and Wildlife is to conserve the natural and cultural resources of the state while also providing opportunities, the ability for people to get out and recreate, whether that's fishing, hiking, hunting, whatever, but to get out and do the recreational activities. When we think of a park and we think of a State Natural Area, the emphasis shifts a little more towards the conservation side. For a State Natural Area, most parks are open seven days a week. We're open four days a week, and that is because we're playing this balancing game of letting the natural resource, the wildlife, the plants, the animals and even the whole aquatic ecosystem have time to recover and go back to that natural state away from the human influence and impact. We also have low visitation numbers. We don't have 1000 people coming in a day, because that would put a heavy impact on the resource. So we keep our visitation down low. The Devils River is subdivided into two units. We have a northern unit called the Del Norte unit, and I'm at the southern unit called the Dan Allen Hughes unit. On those the Del Norte unit, we allow up to 75 people a day in and that's it's capped to help preserve that natural resource here at the southern unit, go up to probably a similar number of visitors. But right now we are still kind of in the development stage. We're building campgrounds, and we're capped at 25 people a day right now, which is why we are kind of a reservation only visitation spot. And what's the difference between these two units at the Devils River State Natural Area is there, like a visible difference? Tell me about the distinguishing factors between them. Each unit has a very distinct biotech they feel completely different. Yes, they're both on the devil's River. Straight line distance 20 miles to get from headquarters at the Dan Allen Hughes unit to the headquarters of the Del Norte unit. You're looking at for most people, an hour and 15 to an hour and a half drive to get back to the main highway that connects them when you drive into the Del Norte unit, you are primarily down in the canyons and valleys, down into kind of the heart of the park that then connects to the river. When you come into the Dan Allen Hughes unit, you're up on the top, kind of the plateau, the wind swept area, and then you.

10:00

Drop down into those valleys to gain river access. But much of the time you're spending up on the plateau, so you get different feels. Del Norte, you're kind of down in the denser vegetation, the trees, down in the canyons. At the Dan Allen Hughes, you're up on the plateau with the Yuccas, the cacti and things like that. So they have distinct feels. And you mentioned that the main attraction out there is the river, and people like to go see that. Obviously, I have been out there. It's really, really pretty. It's like, the most gorgeous, like, I don't know Yucatan ish water I've ever seen in Texas, but what do people actually do in the river, like do people paddle? Between them? Do people swim? How do they utilize that resource? We see various uses on the river. We do have lots of anglers that come out to go fishing. There's lots of people actually do fly fishing out here. Now we are a protected water so north of Lake Amistad, which pretty much is both of our units, is a spawning habitat, if you want to think of that way, for our large and small mouth bass. So it's a catch and release only area for those fishes. A lot of people, you know, they bring their family out. They let kids go swim around in the river, just what you would expect with your normal river activity. At the north unit Del Norte, there are a lot of Big Springs, Finnegan springs, that discharge out of the rocks. And the kids love playing in the springs, where it cascades over the rocks. Most people that come out when they think of the Dover's River, they're thinking of a canoe or a kayak trip down the river. When we're looking at the two parks the Del Norte unit, we only have about a mile of river access that the park directly butts up against the river. When we go to the southern unit, we're looking at closer to six miles of river front that the state natural areas adjacent to now, the distance between the two parks where the public usually is kayaking or canoeing is about 16 miles. Most of that, of course, is through private land. So one of the things that we do strongly encourage is, please respect the private land. These are ranchers and families that are adjacent to the river. This is a natural waterway. People are allowed to go down it. But we got to remember that the natural waterway in the state of Texas is within the boundaries of that stream or that river. Most people won't enjoy the river, and they don't want to just rush through as quick as they can and get from one unit to the other. So they will spend two or three days on the river that way. They can go swimming, they can go fishing. They can just kind of leisurely go down the river and fully enjoy it while doing that to make sure we protect the private landowner rights, most people will choose to camp on islands within the river so they're not accidentally trespassing on anybody's land, or they can stay at one of our paddlers camps that we've established. We've actually made an agreement with a private landowner to lease some property so that campers can stay there and be in a place they're allowed to be without fear of trespassing. You know, if you like the outdoors, you like true isolation, and you love being on the water, it's hard to pass up. We're losing spaces like this around the world, and of course, here in Texas, so I have had the experience of going out and paddling on the devil's River. I've taken a big group of my friends out there in the past, and it was not as scary as some people have chalked it up to be, but it was logistically challenging, like just to get out there. How would you characterize the trip like do you think that people should fear it as much as it's described? What would you advise visitors who are wanting to do something like that? I don't think this is something to fear, but you need to be comfortable in the outdoors. You will be on the river. You will be in remote areas. If you use basic safety, then it is perfectly sound and a great recreational opportunity. You know where your life is. You don't know when your kayak might tumble over, so wear your life vest and enjoy the experience. You're on the water the whole time. So you're kind of down in the canyon, kind of protected from the sun a lot of the time. I will say that sometimes the wind gets a little strong coming up that canyon, so you might paddle a little harder than you want to some days. But if you're lucky, the next day the wind's coming from your backside, you have to paddle less that day. But really, there's not much to fear. Many sections you can easily walk through. The water is not that deep. There are going to be those deeper pools where you can really enjoy kind of jumping in and splashing and swimming around, but then you also got long stretches that are just beautiful, crystal clear, shallow water that you can just leisurely paddle through. We have not had the Danny Hughes unit in our possession for very long, have we? We have not had it in our possession for a very long.

15:00

Time, yes, and it hasn't been open to the public for but a few months. And what's the significance of having more public land in this area and on this waterway? There's various perspectives on that. Obviously one of the biggest significance is we are taking another large tract to land, and we're conserving we're making sure this resource is not accessible for people today, but it will remain accessible for future generations. As part of that, the conservation plan is going to be there for the next generation so that it doesn't become contaminated or degraded over time. We're trying to preserve that resource. Now the other thing, from a more accessibility standpoint, is by having the two units with a significant distance River in between them, it now enables people to,

15:54

we call self shuttling. People can actually stage a vehicle at the Dan Allen Hughes unit, they can then drive up to the north unit, put their kayaks into the river, and then float down to the other unit, so they can kind of see the river on their own timescale. They can have a little more flexibility in their planning by being able to stage vehicles at both ends, if you've got a group coming in the past, because the southern unit, the Darrell and Hughes unit, was closed to the public. The only way that it could be accessed was through private concessionaires and things like that that could get into the property. So this really it opens up the accessibility to a much wider audience that's self shuttling ability is that something we can go out and do now

16:42

we can do it now it is available. We are still working out some of the minor details associated with it, because, like I said, the Daniel Hughes unit has only been open since January of this year,

16:55

so we're still working on it. We're still building campgrounds here at the State Natural Area that I'm part of, but you have the ability to do that, and we've already seen several people over the past couple of months take advantage of that. It takes a little more planning on the part of the individuals, because you got to be able to stage a vehicle at both units, but realistically, it's always going to be a little bit of logistic that goes into visiting the Devils River, whether you go through a concessionaire or you arrange for self shuttling and prior to becoming a park superintendent, you had a different career path. Is that right? I had a very different career path. Yes, that is correct. What were you doing? I was a hydrogeology professor at Stephen F Austin State University. So that's in Far East Texas, almost in Louisiana. It's in that cadence. So I taught hydrology, hydrogeology, groundwater, pretty much everything associated with water, and I focused heavily on what I call karst research. And karst is just a general term that describes land that's filled with caves and springs and the whole connecting of water. So actually, by coming to Devil's River, I now get to live in the exact environment that I was teaching about, how cool and is there anything about the Devils River and the Danny Hughes unit in particular. That's particularly interesting from a hydro geological standpoint. Oh, definitely. We are still at the infancy of understanding how the all the groundwater is circulating through here. It is extremely complex. But just the numerous springs that are coming out of the ground everywhere, that's all this deep, deep water circulation flow pass. We also have the surface where there's evidence that there's probably some caves out here. We haven't found a lot, but it's a complex, interconnected system. This is not a river that has dried up in the past and has then kind of rejuvenated. It's a long running river with sustained water to have developed fish species and mussel species that are unique to this area. So it's a beautifully complex area that we can only learn more about. Can you give me a few examples of those unique species? Well, there's the devil's river pupfish that kind of lives in the splash areas around the springs. There is a freshwater mussel, and I'm not a mussel expert, so I cannot remember the name of it. And then, of course, the river is unique in that it provides this large scale spawning ground for lots of smaller fish and bass species and stuff. It's a stable habitat that the local Fauci has learned over millennia to utilize as a breeding ground. The Danah Hughes unit is pretty large. Is there anything else to do out there besides seeing the river and doing things inside the water? Honestly, I hope that people will learn to appreciate the parks the way I do out here at the State natural areas. We do have lots of trails. We have Vikings.

20:00

Trails. We have hiking trails between the North unit and the South unit. We have well over 10 miles of trails already, and we're working towards adding some additional ones. We have rock art. We are in the kind of the Pecos Valley area, as it's referred that has rock art that's six to 8000 years old. Many people have heard of Seminole Canyon, which is another State Park in the area that's well known for its shelters with prehistoric rock art in it, and we have several sites out here that we do guided tours to for those that enjoy nature watching. Not long ago, we had a group called birds on the border out and they were out here looking at birds and wildlife watching and trying to see how many birds they could tally up over the course of a couple of days. I'm still waiting on the report on that to see just how many they did see. We organize a yearly bio Blitz, which brings out kind of some experts across the state, and we can just document all the wildlife, and we're seeing mass diversity of organisms out here, things that most of us just don't even recognize. It's a wonderful place to get a little isolation while you're at it. Maybe go see some prehistoric rock art. Is there anything else about the devil's river that you'd like to talk about or advise people before they plan a trip out there?

21:21

If you're going to plan a trip out here, remember where you're going? Well, in a straight line distance, close to things you are looking at. An hour drive to get out here from the closest gas station. Make sure those gas tanks are filled. Make sure your spare is inflated and good. There are gravel roads. These are unimproved gravel roads out here because we are dealing with such a large parking area. They're not paved roads, and people do occasionally get flats. So make sure you're prepared for that. And obviously we are basically in the desert. Lots of water, lots of sunscreen. We do not have a lot of public facilities close to the river where you can get potable water, so make sure you bring that in with you. I would say water is your number one thing. You're going to the river to play with water and enjoy the water. Make sure you bring plenty of drinking water with you. So I'm planning another trip out to the doubles river soon, and I'm going to be taking a group of people who I work with, and also my mother. And my mother is not a very outdoorsy person. How do you think she's going to do on the devil's River? It depends on your mother. And you should know your mother, as long as she enjoys being outdoor all day, I think she will be fine. She's going to be exposed to lost water. Obviously, she's going to be in the sun, in and out of the sun, going down the canyons, if you are coming in the spring or the fall. Temperatures should be relatively mild. So she shouldn't be too hot. They shouldn't be that cold at night. Could drop down in the 50s. I think as long as you know you prepare her and tell her, Look, we're going to be on the water all day, and we do not have formal restroom facilities. They will be very primitive. If she's okay with that, if your mother trusts you, she will be fine. Well, she's got a good attitude about it, so I think we're gonna see how that goes.

23:19

Armed with that information I was ready to get on the water, and that's exactly what we're gonna do right after this break

23:27

from Big Bend to Barcelona, Whole Earth provision company, outfits, free spirits and side Questers alike, in superb quality goods, find them in store or online at whole earthprovision.com

23:41

Attention boaters nearby lakes have harmful invasive species like giant salfinian zebra mussels. You can help stop the spread, Clean, Drain and Dry your boat before traveling from lake to lake, and protect the lakes you love. Visit tpwd.texas.gov/stop,

23:59

invasives. You

24:05

I pick up my mom and her friend Esther the day before our trip so we can make the five hour drive to the Devils River. We camp out and get ready for a big day tomorrow. The next day, we get a slow start as we drink our coffee, and by the time we load up our boats, it's about 10am way past time to get on the water. But before we go, I have one very important interview,

24:27

yeah, so tell me who you are. My name is Priscilla Lozano, and who are you to me. I am your mom. And where are we today, Mom, we're at the put in at the Devils River, and it's absolutely beautiful here. What are we looking at? I see hills in the background, covered with cactus. I see, most importantly, a beautiful river that is green in color. It looks kind of low on the hills in the background. I see.

25:00

Beautiful cactus and various shrubs and trees. I've seen some mountain laurel, some that was just starting to bloom. We've seen wonderful wildlife on the way here, including a Cottontail and a road runner like Kevin told us, there's two units at the Devils River State Natural Area, and today we're at the Del Norte unit, which is upriver from the Dan Hughes unit. And what are we going to be doing over the next couple days? Oh my goodness, so excited. We're going to be paddling down the Devils River in a few minutes. When we put in today, we're going to do probably about five miles. We're gonna stay at a paddlers camp. How are you feeling about this? I'm a little anxious. This is the first time I've ever paddled the devil's river, but I have some good companions, and I'm ready to take on this adventure. Have you ever camped before? I have camped before, but mostly with guided tours. So this is the first time my daughter is you are guiding us along with your colleagues, and really excited. All right. Well, let's put on all right. Let's do it now. Let's just hope I don't kill her. It only takes us about a mile of paddling to get to the first major obstacle, Dolan falls, this 15 foot limestone waterfall is only accessible by paddling down the river. Due to the drought, the current is pretty mild, but when the river gets moving, the water can sweep away unsuspecting paddlers down the falls, and it can get pretty dangerous. Okay, mom, repeat after me. What did I just tell you? Most importantly, do not let myself go down Dolan falls, and do not let the boat go down Dolan falls. We carry our provisions and we carry our boat. We're tying a rope on now to help secure and ensure that the boat isn't going down the fields. We spend about an hour first unloading and then reloading our boats to slide them down the side of the waterfall and then take a quick dip in the clear waters below the falls. We've passed the biggest hurdle, but it's not smooth sailing. From here on out, we're facing a headwind that shows no signs of stopping.

27:15

These boats don't handle the best in the wind, and the river is low. We're getting out to drag our boats every 100 or 200 yards.

27:28

Every time I step out of the boat, I earn a new bumper bruise, ow,

27:34

ow. The low water also makes it harder to find channels of moving water to get down the rapids. Uh, looks like left maybe, I don't know,

27:47

yeah, stay left in the white water the whole way down.

27:51

Like there's a boulders on this way, and you're gonna go all left of the boulders,

27:57

all the way left. Except for that,

28:01

I spend a lot of the day coaching my mom and Esther through the rock gardens. Next time I go first to show them a path through

28:12

it's not too scary. It's not scary. Come on.

28:18

Come on. Come on. Come on.

28:22

Now. Nice job.

28:32

We're pretty convinced the paddle camp should be around here somewhere, right?

28:39

We've all gotten better throughout the day, but toward the end of it, we're all ready to find camp for the night. So there's only one big rapid tomorrow, and we don't have to do anything like going gold again.

28:53

But I don't know what the wind forecast is, and

28:56

we have about twice as much distance to paddle tomorrow.

29:01

Well, tomorrow we'll be at the cars, so we have something to motivate us,

29:07

but we're also a little worried about what's waiting for us tomorrow. As we wind down, I ask my mom what scared her the most today. So far, the scariest thing was when I fell out of the canoe because I didn't want to tip the canoe over. And so we were going down the rapids, and I saw it was going to go over. I needed to get out. So I got out. What I have learned is you want to make sure that you go out down a rapids with your feet first. So that was the scariest thing. Ultimately, it worked out. You know, the canoe didn't tip over, but that was the scariest thing, yeah. But besides that one moment, it's been a lot less scary than she thought. We go to bed for the night thankful that it's been mostly smooth sailing so far.

29:57

This is day two of our Devil's river trip, and.

30:00

And today we've got a pretty nice tailwind on us, which is a nice change from yesterday without hattling, we're probably moving at least a mile and a half an hour pace, whereas yesterday, we were fighting the wind pretty much the whole way. And we've now reached the more Canyon area of the river. The water is bright turquoise green, and we have finally passed the last of the rapids, which is good news for our whole group, especially with the water being this low. We've been dragging on a lot of rocks, and we're probably only about four miles from the finish. So just really grateful to be out here and to be showing my mom, her friend and my colleagues this river. I'm suspecting my mom is getting a bit better, but to make sure I put a mic on Esther my mom's friend to spy on her. Yeah, I'm really good at this backward paddling. This

31:00

is so incredible, unbelievable. I really love the white trees along the shoreline because they just kind of really pop out and draw on the left.

31:13

There we go. But that's it. We're straight now, forward path. Ah, that wind.

31:20

Every stroke counts

31:23

at this point.

31:25

Nicely done. Nicely done. It's as if we knew what we were doing, even though they're getting the hang of it. I think two days on the river was plenty, and we start to get excited when I see a familiar cliff on the horizon. I think we're getting close, are we?

31:41

I'm pretty sure these cliffs are starting to look familiar. That would be

31:46

we're gonna be walking for the next like 100 feet. But then this is it. We're here. We're here. But before the devils lets us go, I've got one more thing to show them. So look, see this thing. See where my paddles pointing? See that like mess of sticks in that little crevice and that white pocket? Do you see the black thing sticking out of it? Yes, that's a bald eagle. It's a bald eagle's nest. The

32:13

rest of the group is waiting for us when we arrive at the Dan Hughes unit. Huh?

32:18

I'll take a little help.

32:22

All that's left now is unloading our gear and figuring out how to get the boats back on top of our truck. Is it another community trip or That's it? Nope, that's it. We're done. It's over.

32:34

Y'all did it with a successful trip behind us. We drive off into the sunset for a shower and a nice juicy burger. When we come back from the break, I'll recap the trip and share some new lessons I learned about what it really means to be outdoorsy.

32:50

For 25 years, Texans have been contributing to conservation when they buy specialty license plates for their vehicles, trailers or motorcycles. You can choose from 11 eye catching plates featuring colorful illustrations of outdoors imagery, including the big horn sheep, the horned lizard, the Blue Bonnet and so much more. And for $30 a year, you too can ride with the wild TPWD gets back $22 of that annual purchase for wildlife, land, water and habitat conservation. Visit conservation plate.org, to see them all, make your selection and help drive conservation forward.

33:36

So Morgan, I'm very happy to hear that your mother really like the Devils River. I am so relieved.

33:45

I think we prepared well enough, and ultimately that led to a very successful trip. I think everybody was maybe a bit bruised up, but very happy. Have you had the chance to get out there yet? It's one of the regrets of my life, that so far I haven't been able to get out to the devil's River and paddle on it, but I'm hoping very soon to be able to do that. Are you nervous at all for any of the horror stories that people have told you about out there? Not at all. You know, David, all of this has me thinking about, when do you think you realize that you were outdoorsy? So to speak, I don't know if I ever realized that I was outdoorsy. I just grew up in the outdoors, so

34:24

it was more about me not being in the outdoors that was became uncomfortable. So you know, that goes back to my family. That goes back to my father and all the backpacking trips that we did together, and fishing trips and climbing trips. It just was part of my life from the beginning. I've got to say I'm a little jealous. I've only camped when I was growing up. I'd only camped maybe a handful of times through elementary school and college, and it wasn't really until after I graduated that I got into the outdoors. I picked it up during the pandemic, and a lot of those hobbies stuck, but I'm not sure I would still call.

35:00

Myself the biggest outdoors person alive. I mean, I'm going out and doing all this stuff, but I'm still pretty afraid of bugs, and I run and squeeze

35:09

I know I know embarrassing, right? I run and scream every single time I see a wasp, and maybe we'll cover that in another episode. Okay, are you allergic No, okay, well, that's okay. You'll get over that. Maybe it's been a long time, and I still haven't done it yet. I'm worried it's here to stay. I think you can call yourself outdoorsy now maybe, maybe I've earned that badge, Mom, you have. So David, before we wrap up this episode, I want to ask you more about this new special edition to our state park system. What's so exciting about it? Well, I mean, it's great to have the Danah Hughes unit as part of the Devils River State Natural Area. It's going to provide more outdoor opportunity camping, being able to float the river from the north unit down to the Danny Hughes unit. And it's also really important in terms of being able to protect the river frontage.

36:14

Better outside a Texas Parks and Wildlife production is brought to you by WHOLE EARTH provision company. This episode was written and recorded by me Morgan O'Hanlon. Story edited by Wes Ferguson and aislin Gaddis for free range productions, sound design and audio engineering by Austin Sisler at Eastside studios in Austin, Texas. Our theme song was written and recorded by Walker Lukens and grant Epley. Artwork for the show is by Aaron Zachary. And if you like the story, you should check out Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine at TPW magazine.com that's Texas polecat waco magazine.com

36:54

and you can support us by subscribing to the magazine for only $2 a month.

37:00

All this information, along with transcripts, photos, links and so much more is available in our show notes. You can find them at better outside.com

37:09

and of course, you can find better outside wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time we'll catch you outside.

37:21

See the