Padre Island National Seashore is the longest remaining undeveloped stretch of barrier island in the United States. Jen and I visited the north end of the island, near Corpus Christi, in February, 2001, and camped overnight on the beach. Being February, it wasn't very crowded, but there were plenty of fishermen driving down the beach, even in the middle of the night.
These photos are copyright © 2000-2003 Kenneth E. Harker. All rights reserved.
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The Gulf of Mexico on a winter day. We arrived mid-afternoon and found a camping spot three or four miles down the beach. |
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Our tent was maybe 50 meters from the water. Unfortunately, it was pretty windy at night, which made for a noisy tent. |
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There was a lot of kelp and seaweed washed up on the beach. There was also a non-trivial amount of beach trash. Volunteers help clean the beach each spring, so it had been ten months or so since the last cleaning. |
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Ken, holding a Thermarest sleeping. As you can see, we weren't very close to our nearest neighbors. |
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Some of the vegetation growing in the dunes. |
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The dunes are off-limits because of their fragile ecology. |
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This is about as far up into the dunes as you are allowed to go. Jen is getting the tent set up. |
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How anything can grow in pure sand is amazing. |
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Jen, out on the beach. While it was warm enough for shorts, we only went swimming (briefly) once. The water was pretty cold for Texas. |
| Last Updated 1 August 2018 |