From the Cedar Breaks trailhead.

The best part of the hike was definitely the Crockett Gardens Fall.  Note that for the best view of the falls, you'll need to take a little side trip--follow the stone marker and take the path to the right.  It's less than a quarter-mile.  Everything else was grey and dreary and leafless, but the falls were this glorious mound of emerald, cascading with maidenhair ferns and crowned, implausibly, with a huge pool of elephant ears.  

The old farm ruins were pretty neat, too, and when you return to the main trail and climb up above the falls, there's this magical spot where the springs puddle before they trickle over the rock, and it's full of irises--would love to see them in bloom.

Cons: the trails are full of pointy, irregular, ankle-twisting rocks.("karst" maybe?). It's extra work to pick your way over this treacherous footing, and all the time you have to spend watching your feet really limits your sightseeing.  Picturesque, but a PAIN in the arse.  Unless you're a mountain goat, pack an ace bandage, just in case.

Also, the trail mile markers don't appear to begin counting until the trail hits the lake, which means you get an extra mile to and from the parking lot.  We meant to walk 7 miles (manageable), but because of the weird way the miles are counted, we accidentally ended up hiking 9.4 miles, which beat the stuffing out of me.

I'd do it again (especially when the irises are blooming), but probably only to the Crockett Gardens and back, so that it doesn't turn into a death march.

Hiked 4 miles in from the Cedar Breaks Park TH past Crockett Gardens. While Crockett Gardens was gorgeous and a great glimpse into history I was saddened to find that a large portion of the area, including where the springs flow out of the limestone cliffside and the old 3 walled structure, are fenced off and marked private property. The landowners have obstructed a large fence that causes a choke point on the trail. I'm absolutely dumbfounded that they would do this to prevent explorers from taking the whole area in especially since it's not easily accessible from the rest of their land due to a good size cliff wall. There was still much of the original structures that we could explore along with the falls. Highly recommend this trek to anyone who loves good views and history. Will return to explore further in the future. As always Id be happy to accompany fellow travelers, marksanderson23@icloud.com.

I have done different sections at different times.  It is rough in spots, about first 2 miles in from TH you will run into hikers, walkers, runners in the early morning, but not many others after that.  The rocky parts at the beggining will kill you and your dogs feet.

After mile 2 there is about a mile of prairie opening that will bake your skin and brain-  I call it the death mile in the summer, but then you come the springs- even in the drought there is enough cold water trickle down the ferns to make life enjoyable again.

• There is nothing at the Cedar Breaks trail head other than a tidy parking lot. No water. No Trash cans. Nothing.
  
  
• The "map" they pass out at the gate is the same PDF that you get on the web. ( http://www.swf-wc.usace.army.mil/georgetown/images/gtwn%20images/images/HikingTrailCDW.pdf ) IF you are an orienteering person: forget it. Perhaps the USGS quads are available.
  
  
• The trail is not well marked, but very easy to follow. Our only confusion was to turn off on the feed trails Cedar Hollow Camp and Sawyer Camp. There are rck sign structures to mark the trail junction, but the wooden part that told you what is going on has rotted away.
  
  
•   Crocket Garden/ Knight Springs was nice and cool. Good spot to filter water. (mile 2.5 or so)
  
  
• Cedar Hollow Camp was empty other that one group of campers: despite the fact it was a Saturday night in June. It looked very nice. There are no facilities or clean water there. We pumped lake water here to purify it. We did not stay here. It did look nice. There were some boaters who looked like they were about to do "Drive Up Camping"
  
  
• Sawyer Camp (Mile 6.5 ?) was up the hill a bit form the lake. There was not a single person there. We got there about 5 PM on a summer saturday. So if you are looking for a get away: this could be it. Getting to the lake to get water was a bit of a scramble thru some medium thickets. Bothe Sawyer and Cedar Hollow have old abandoned outhouse facilities. These are so abandoned that they have neglected to even tear them down. They are not useful: if you are the kind of hiker who needs potty....
  
  
• From mile 7 to 10 the grass grows in on the trail so Knee high socks or long pants are advised. (not to mention the waves of grasshoppers you will upset: it was like a biblical /plague but cool!)
  
  
• Tejas Park Campground is the one at the extreme West end. Very nice facility: But it is a "Drive up and camp" place. Despite this we were the only one to stay the night. Its clean an the land around it is very nice. Lots of room if you have kids who want to run in the open meadow. There is a single water socket with running water and restrooms.
  
  NOTE: The old guy who care takes the Tejas facility is very nice: but I get the impression that he has to have the rules followed. This means make sure you print your reservation slip or have it on your iPhone.
  
  * You never get to far from the noises of boats, farms or highways. But you don't see too much of it.
  
  We will go back and probably do the north shore before summer is out.

Went out to Crockett Gardens and back. Terrain was different than I remembered, because the lake level was significantly higher than I'd ever seen it before. The waterfall going directly into the lake was beautiful, and the irises were in full bloom along with other wildflowers.

Beautiful trail, and so close to Austin! This was my first and I will definitely come back for the rest of it. Did only 6 miles in and back (12 total) this morning. We started at the Cedar Breaks trailhead and went clockwise. Yesterday was a snow day so when we started around 9:30am we still had some snow on the ground and some of the falls were frozen! The drawback was that on the way back it all became muddy :-) We were alone for most of the time; only when we headed back afternoon we saw a few hikers and couple of families. Note that my rating referrs only to the first 6 miles clockwise. Will come back for the whole loop in spring.

This was our 2nd trip around the lake, doing several miles each time usually weekly.  We saw different things that we didn't see last year. 

There's a candy box on the trail going east from Russell park that marks the turn along the fence to head north.  It was helpful as due to the rain the trail that goes alon the road was under water.  This was during January 2010.

We finished this year going east to west this time, as the last 2 miles is flat headed to Tejas camp, we felt this was a little easier than the opposite direction, in any case it's 11 miles, so started at 8 am and finished at 3pm. 

The only thing we had forgotten about was the hill you had to climb (24 steps up and 19 down) before getting to the flat land.  We may have taken the lower route last year due to the drought, but not able to do it this year.

Can't wait to start the hike when it's cooler again next fall (usually start about November).

Tried to find the Tejas camp on the west end and couldnt locate it.  Wound up in someone's driveway and had to back out.  Finally found the east end.  They dont let you on the dam anymore.  Takes 20 minutes of walking to even get to the lake, and the path doesn't really go close to the lake.  Pretty redundant til you get to the falls and that was just okay as you see it from the top, then we turned around.  Temperature dropped 15 degrees at the halfway point so wasn't too fun an experience for us.

We did the majority of the complete loop this past weekend, March 14-15 '09.    We started at Cedar Breaks and worked clockwise, although in the future I'd probably reverse that and go counter-clockwise, getting the few miles of paved road and dam out of the way first.    Due to a late start on Saturday, combined with a variety of stops to view scenery, etc. we started to worry about getting over to Walnut Springs in time to set up camp in the daylight.  It was a 15 mile stretch from Cedar Breaks to Walnut Springs, and for a trio of 40+ year old backpackers in questionable shape, it was a little much.   To ensure we'd make it in time to Walnut Springs, we opted to take the old Hunt low-water concrete crossing bridge instead of going all the way to the Tejas crossing, saving a little over 3 miles.  Thus the reason for me posting that we did 23 miles of a 26 mile loop.  The Hunt crossing was high and dry, and the river / lake is so low that we could have actually crossed a mile or so before even the Hunt crossing.   We ended up at Walnut Springs around 5pm, and thanks to the recent rains, the burn ban had been lifted for the weekend allowing us to have a campfire.  The following day we headed out of Walnut Springs, stopping at Russell Park to fill up on water.  The hiking was nice with the cooler weather, although it was overcast and misting rain off and on.  But the pain was the muddy trail, and the gumbo mud collected quickly on your boots forcing you to frequently clean them off or suffer what felt like was lugging an extra 10 pounds on each foot.    As noted earlier, when you're already tired, finishing off the trail with a 2 mile hike across the dam and then paved roads (uphill) isn't the most pleasant of endings, so in the future we'll go the other way.   Also, unless you're just a gung-ho speed hiker, and instead want to enjoy the hike, I'd probably break it up into a  3 day outing with shorter hikes.  Plus I'd go when the trail is a little dryer.   All in all, great scenery and decent solitude (we saw only a couple of groups on the trail and one group near us at the Walnut Springs Camp).   We'll definitely do this one again!  Long loops are rare in Texas!