San Marcos

There'a a big tree across the river, as of Feb. 5, 2019, just upstream of Don's Fish Camp/tuber takeout. Easy portage on river right.

Two major floods occurred on the Blanco River in 2015, a 1000-year flood on Memorial Day weekend and a 500-year flood on Halloween weekend. Both floods sent hundreds of thousands of cfs into the San Marcos River below the Blanco confluence. Additionally, the San Marcos itself flooded during both events, due to contributing flows from urban runoff and Purgatory Creek, as well as upstream back-flow from the Blanco confluence. As of December, 2015, the stretch of river between Westerfield Crossing and FM 1979 is known to be fully navigable, and in fact, the Halloween flood seems to have widened and cleared the channel, making some of the rapids easier than they were before. Use caution, however, as there is still quite a bit of debris (including RV chassis, etc.) along the banks.

San Marcos River Retreat and Shady Grove Campground are reportedly closed for repairs (also as of Dec. 2015), which may make large group trips logistically difficult, but Sculls Rd and CR 101 are open. Sculls Rd was washed away in the Halloween flood, but it has since been repaired, and the flood deposited a large gravel bar upstream of it, so it is actually easier to take out there than it was before. There is debris clinging to the underside of the Sculls Rd bridge. At the current level (350-400 cfs), kayakers may be able to duck underneath it, but canoes and rafts will definitely want to portage. The Suburban that was deposited in the eddy above Cottonseed during the Memorial Day flood is now gone, as is the debris that had piled up around it. The sieve at river left in Cottonseed (caused by the undermining of the remnants of the old dam structure in 2008) may have been filled in by the floods, but we won't know until the river level drops. Hazards, such as bank-side strainers, always exist along this stretch of river, but in general, there seem to be fewer obstacles than before the flood.