Saddle Up! For the Texas Trail Roundup. San Antonio, Texas, Febriary 24-26, 2017

TEXAS TRAIL ROUNDUP 2019 YEAR-ROUND WALKS

Walk with the Texas Trail Roundup all year long!

WIMBERLEY

SEGUIN

STONEOAK

NORTHSTAR

TANGER

2019 PHOTO GALLERY

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Three days of glorious walking, from the dense urban core of the 7th largest city in the USA to nearby quiet trails that will make you think you have drifted back 300 years in time.

2019 Walk Info

Over the next few months we’ll be sharing our secrets about the best of the best places in San Antonio. Most of them are on the walk routes! You’ll be in town for the last three days of the Stock Show and Rodeo and you’ll have time to see The Saga, a world-class sound and light show projected onto the facade of San Fernando Cathedral. Stay tuned! (And watch the video . . .)

What is an IML Walk?

The Texas Trail Roundup has spent three years working hard to have our event sanctioned by the IML, which we hope will happen at their May 2019 meeting in Blankenberge, Belgium. Volkssporters may wonder: what is IML? Think of it as a cousin the IVV and the AVA. The...

Sunken Garden Theater: The Other Half of the Quarry

Yesterday we wrote about the Japanese Tea Gardens, which were constructed in an abandoned quarry that bisected Brackenridge Park. Actually, the Gardens only took up half the quarry. The other half -- the northern part -- is now the Sunken Garden Theater. When the Tea...

More Than Water Under the Bridge

We walkers have all been spooked by a creepy underpass. What (or who?) lurks in the shadows? On the San Antonio Riverwalk, that ominous feeling of dread has been banished by art. The undercrofts of our bridges are beautiful and safe Let's start with the FISH,...

Simply Beautiful: The Japanese Tea Garden

It wasn't always beautiful. In 1915, the new San Antonio Parks Commissioner, Ray Lambert, embraced the “modern” ideal of healthier urban environments for the wealthy and working class alike. His grand idea was to create a park near downtown by connecting a 199-acre...

UNESCO World Heritage Site: What’s the Big Deal?

On July 4, 2015 the San Antonio Missions became a UNESCO ( United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) World Heritage Site. What's the big deal? In 1972, various international bodies united to draw up the World Heritage Convention. It was...

Un Poquito de Mexico en HemisFair Park

The 10km Friday Friendship walk will take you through HemisFair Park. Just before you get to the Tower of the Americas you'll be instructed to walk to the left of the Mayan Statue and head towards the big blue sculpture titled "Unamita." What are these things doing...

The Sssssssnakes of San Antonio

For some odd reason when non-Texans talk to us about walking in the Lone Star State they look worried and ask about snakes. Texas isn't snakier than other parts of the United States. It must be all those Western movies that feature an obligatory rattlesnake. So, to...

Empty Tomb: The Cenotaph

From the Greek words kenos (empty) and taphos (tomb) cenotaphs are tombs or monuments erected to honor a person or persons whose remains are elsewhere or their whereabouts unknown. This one in San Antonio's Alamo Plaza is sometimes referred to as "The" Cenotaph. It...

A Walk through Academia: Trinity University

Sunday's 23k walk will take you through the campus of Trinity University, located between Brackenridge Park and the historic Monte Vista neighborhood. Presbyterians founded Trinity in 1869 in Tehuacana, Texas (about 40 miles NE of Waco) from the remnants of three...

San Fernando Cathedral

The site for the Church of San Fernando was selected on July 2, 1731, when Juan Antonio Pérez de Almazán, captain of the Presidio of San Antonio, laid out a central square for the villa of San Fernando de Béxar. The cornerstone for the first attempt to build a stone...

Our Enchilada Red Library: More Than Books (But We Have Those, Too)

On every walk you get a view of San Antonio's Enchilada Red Central Library, opened in May, 1995. It's a prominent part of the San Antonio skyline. Here's a short video explaining how it got built: You'll walk past our two previous libraries on Friday's Friendship...

Take a Walk in a City Park

One of the American Volkssport Association's Special Programs is "Take a Walk in a City Park." During the Texas Trail Roundup, you will do that. And do it again, and again, putting you on track to fill up the 20 walks required to earn the cool patch. We have almost...

Bird Invasion!

In the fall and winter, at dusk and into the night, the trees and utility wires of San Antonio are covered in birds. Squawking, raucous, big black birds, straight from a Hitchcock movie. They are Quiscalus Mexicanus, called el Zanate in Mexico, where they originate....

Stop by the Award-Winning Confluence Park

Last year's Texas Trail Roundup missed the grand opening of Confluence Park by two weeks.. This is your chance to see this amazing park that just won one of the architecture industry’s highest honors, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Institute Honor Awards...

Two Really, Really, REALLY Interesting Hotel Stories

Last month we were hanging around downtown and an out-of-town friend pointed to the Fairmont Hotel, on the edge of La Villita, and said, "bet that's been there for a while." Not really . . . the small hotel was built in 1906, but it's only been THERE, at the corner...

Eligible for credit toward IVV Achievement Awards

IML credit will not be available for 2019 but we hope you will support the Texas Trail Roundup in our four-year-long quest to become a sanctioned IML!