Medina River

About the River

The Medina River rises from its North and West Prongs on the Edwards Plateau in northwestern Bandera County, converging near the town of Medina before running roughly 120 miles southeast through the Hill Country, into Medina Lake, and eventually joining the San Antonio River in southern Bexar County. Above the lake and through the town of Bandera, it stays a clear, gravel-bottomed stream lined with bald cypress, a classic stretch of Hill Country ranch country.

American Whitewater documents the floatable water in two runs. Moffett Park, a city park in the town of Medina, down to Bandera City Park covers roughly 20 miles of easy Class I-II water, with a handful of low-water road crossings along the way, most notably the private crossing at Chenaults Lane, where paddlers should portage above 500 cubic feet per second and watch for a downed tree just downstream. From Bandera City Park on to English Crossing Road, another 12 miles passes the old dam just below town and Bandera Falls, a small rapid near the end of the run, before reaching the low-water crossing that serves as the standard take-out. A local outfitter in Bandera rents tubes and kayaks for shorter stretches of the same water.

Unlike the spring-fed rivers closer to San Antonio, the Medina responds directly to Hill Country rainfall rather than steady aquifer discharge, so conditions swing further and faster: a good float can turn into a portage-heavy slog within a day or two of a hard rain upstream. Below Bandera, Medina Lake and its dam mark the practical end of this run; the lake is its own destination but isn't part of the floatable corridor described here.