These photos were taken by Park Superintendent Barrett Durst on Monday, February 15, 2021, unless otherwise noted.  Over five inches of snow had fallen the previous night.  With near record cold for South Texas, electrical capacity was exceeded, resulting in blackouts.  Fortunately, the Park experienced only brief outages.  But what an opportunity to see a South Texas winter wonderland!  So Barrett and his wife Meridith decided to take a hike through the Park and Honey Creek State Natural Area.  The scenes, as well as the super cold temperatures, took their breaths away.

Rangers Holly Platz and Howell Pugh provided this note regarding the creatures of the park during the Big Freeze and Spectacular Snow: 

While we were all enjoying the late winter snow from the safety of our homes, our full-time residents of Guadalupe River SP were going about their usual business, only in a much colder and foreign landscape than their usual Hill Country views. The gray fox [last photo below, caught on a game camera set up by Howell Pugh] was  out looking for a meal hiding somewhere under the snow. I wonder what little mouse or other small mammal was burrowing under the snow that had caught this fox’s eye, or more likely its nose. Other predators were out as well during the storm. The sounds of coyotes’ calls could be heard drifting on the air along with the snowflakes in the wintery landscape of the park. Armadillos, some of our more cold adverse residents, waited out this strange weather by taking to their warm underground burrows. They were surely counting the hours until it was warm enough to go back out and forage for food because armadillos are unable to build up enough body fat reserves to survive too long without a meal. The park’s white-tailed deer seemed not to mind the snow much at all, going about their normal business, foraging for food and burning off the fat reserves they build up over the spring and summer months. Their very distant cousin, the axis deer, or chital deer, did not fare as well in the cold and snow as they come from the much warmer Indian subcontinent. But the park residents that were most affected by the snow and freezing cold temperatures were our poor Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent, Barrett and Ben. With hardly any fat reserves needed to survive such frigid weather, both men braved many long hours outside in the freezing cold to prevent as much winter weather damage to the park as possible. Thanks to their hard work (and warm jackets and gloves), Guadalupe River SP was able to escape any major winter damage and be open back up to the public just a few short days after the winter storm moved away from the Hill Country.

The main Park in winter

Honey Creek in winter