The Trailist: A low-speed appreciation of Bamberger Nature Park’s dirt trails

For years, Bamberger Nature Park was for me just a short section of a longer mountain bike ride along the Leon Creek Greenway. Last week, I got a chance to slow down and appreciate the natural area more fully.

The park includes 55 acres on the Northwest Side where the typically dry Huesta and Maverick creeks intersect with the larger Leon Creek, which often at least has standing pools of water. The land also lies over the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone, where water flows directly from the surface into the aquifer through cracks and crevices in the limestone rock.

All my past visits to Bamberger involved whipping through on my mountain bike, one leg of a ride that usually stretches from OP Schnabel Park to UTSA. At Bamberger, the network of bike trails includes several short, steep drops and creek crossings fun to take at high speed.

Last week was my first time seeing Bamberger at low speed, walking the whole way. A persistent, jabbing pain in my right knee developed over the past two weeks and forced me to take a break from biking and running. At 34, I’m already finding that minor injuries require more rest and rehab than they did in my 20s.

Still, I embraced the chance to move slowly, looking for trails I might have missed by bike. I started with the three concrete trails listed on the city’s trail map. Of these, the 0.4-mile asphalt South Loop is the only looped trail, circling a flat area with open areas interspersed with trees and shrubs. The 0.3-mile Main Loop is more of a concrete sidewalk along Babcock Road than a trail, ending at a temporary fence at the park’s northwestern edge.

The paved trails also include a 0.3-mile connector trail from the Bamberger parking lot to the Leon Creek Greenway along Old Babcock Road, which forms the park’s eastern boundary. From Bamberger, a cyclist could take the Leon Creek Greenway about 10 miles south to West Military Drive or 8.5 miles north to Eisenhower Park, where it intersects with the Salado Creek Greenway.

But the park also sits next to other mini-greenways branching off Leon Creek. The first begins just north of the Bamberger Park connection to the greenway at Old Babcock Road. Leon Creek Greenway veers right, while heading straight puts visitors onto the Huesta Creek Greenway, which runs 1 mile north to a trailhead on Hausman Road, plus another short segment linking Hausman to a sidewalk along Chisholm Creek Drive. At the intersection of Babcock and Old Babcock, Huesta Creek Greenway meets the even tinier Maverick Creek Greenway that only extends 0.6 miles north to UTSA Boulevard. I wish other parts of the greenway network had so many connections to nearby neighborhoods.

The best trails at Bamberger — more than 2 miles of singletrack dirt mostly cut by mountain bikers — aren’t on any official maps. I would always make sure to ride the areas where the trail swoops over earthen banks and shoot riders across rocky stream beds, only to climb the next small hill.

Only on foot did I realize how many routes I had missed. I did my best to trace each of these major paths, often doubling back to make sure I was mapping parallel routes only a few dozen feet apart. I’ve included the main routes here, though my map is missing several connectors and access trails.

I usually listen to music when I ride, but I left my headphones out for most of my roughly 6-mile tromp through the woods. Going more slowly, I could appreciate the persistent calls of cardinals — sounding a bit like a toy laser gun — and the slight crunch of bike tires coming up behind me. Walkers or trail-runners using earbuds should be aware of the heavy bike traffic through Bamberger and other Leon Creek Greenway parks.

During my rides, I had also breezed by the park’s entrance without noticing the plaque mounted on a boulder, reading “Nanez Ranch.” I learned that before becoming a park, the property had belonged to the Nanez family for more than a century from 1878 to 1984.

Later, I pulled up a 1999 San Antonio Express-News interview with John Nanez, grandson of immigrants Juan and Laura DeSais Nanez. The couple moved from Mexico in the 1860s following the Mexican Civil War, only to find the U.S. Civil War soon to break out in their adopted country. Still, they managed to save enough to buy 110 acres and create a business dealing horses and mules to the Army after the war, along with civilians. Their son Severo later grew crops, raised cattle and hogs and operated a dairy on the land.

In 1982, the family sold the land to Church’s Texas Chicken co-founder David Bamberger, who later donated it to the city as a public space. Aside from being over the recharge zone, most of the property lies in the flood plain and could not be as easily developed as the surrounding neighborhoods. Bamberger’s Selah preserve in Blanco County is a well-known example of natural habitat restoration in the Hill Country.

Bamberger Nature Park has its own share of natural treasures, including an absolute explosion of ripening agarita berries during my visit last week. I couldn’t walk more than 50 feet without finding one of the prickly shrubs with bunches of red-orange berries. Most were still a bit tart and hadn’t reached full ripeness.

Spring wildflowers had brought an abundance of butterflies. They congregated around the purple blossoms of thistle plants that in some open places grew more than 6 feet tall.

Most of the park is tree-covered and shady, making it a good place to explore even in summer months. Make sure to bring bug spray, though. Moving slowly allowed the mosquitoes to catch up with me, and I learned just how many lurk in the forests along Leon Creek.

I hope to fix my knee and be back riding and running at faster-than-mosquito speed soon. Until then, I’ll keep trying to appreciate moving more slowly, hearing the birds, and tasting the berries along the trail.