MountainBikeTx.com

Prospect Park & Purgatory Creek Natural Area
 San Marcos, TX

Sections of Park and Natural Area closed until 1 June. More info here.

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MapIt!

10.25 miles

2-3

singletrack

network

San Marcos Greenbelt Alliance (2012)

none

Beatrice Trail | The Circles | Dante's Trail | Limbo Loop | Malacoda Trail
Nimrod Trail | Ovid Trail | Paraiso Trail | Ripheus Trail | Sinon Trail
Virgil's Trail

none

San Marcos Greenbelt Alliance

(512) 754-9321
click here to send an email

 

Placard found at the Prospect Street entrance Park entrance from Prospect Street The Prospect Street trailhead Rollin' down some smooth singletrack The trail is equally split between open fields and in the trees Open areas are almost always this relaxing One of a few rocky creek crossings Winding through the trees Prospect Park offers plenty of rock gardens for your enjoyment Stretches like this provide the opportunity for speed Another of the many rocky gardens you'll find One of the more easily navigated rocky areas Doesn't everyone love lil' baby heads? You can see that this trail is fairly well-maintained Perhaps the most technical switchback found at Prospect Park No one will laugh if you dismount at this point A bit of an off-camber section

unavailable

  Prospect Park & Purgatory Creek Greenspace features some very nice singletrack and technical sections, but unfortunately seems to be rather unknown to most. The main park entrance is very limited on parking; however, there is another location down a dirt road not too far from the main trailhead that allows a few more vehicles. When I say limited parking I mean like 2 or 3 cars. Nevertheless, from the main trailhead you start out along a gravel path, but within seconds you will see where the singletrack goes left and the gravel path goes right (see photo). Um, take the singletrack.
  Your initial introduction to these trails will make you start wondering if this is going to be a good ride or not, as the trail wastes no time in providing very rocky sections of trail as the elevation decreases. Get through that little intro to Prospect Park and the trail calms down a bit. Actually, at times it even becomes nice and flowing, especially in the open areas, as you can see in the photos below.
  As far as difficulty and technical features, Prospect Park tends to fluctuate from one extreme to the other. Although most of the trails wouldn’t warrant much more than a 2 on our scale, there were enough sections that popped up here and there that would easily earn a 3; hence, the reason it's rated as a level 2-3 trail. After-all, while many sections allow for easy riding, the more technical sections might prove to be quite trying. The most common technical feature would be the rock gardens that require a rider to be slow and calculating in the line he/she chooses, but quickly bring a bike to a halt if the speed isn’t there. Many of the trail's switchbacks, if not too rocky are often quite loose, making for a quick loss of speed or control if you don’t hit them right. On a positive note, Prospect Park is a fairly suitable place to take someone who may not be the most technical rider. Even though technical sections abound, the not-so-technical sections are generally the norm.
~ MountainBikeTx.com (updated July 2010)

 

Prospect Park weather forecast

Last modified: 26 April 2012