The Hill Country reservoir with a canyon of its own making.
Canyon Lake is an 8,240-acre Army Corps flood-control reservoir on the Guadalupe River northwest of New Braunfels, famous for the 64-acre gorge a 2002 flood carved below its spillway in just three days, exposing 110-million-year-old fossils and dinosaur tracks.
Canyon Lake sits on the Guadalupe River in the Texas Hill Country, twelve miles northwest of New Braunfels, impounded by a 6,830-foot earthfill dam the Army Corps of Engineers finished in 1964 after floods in 1921 and 1935 devastated the valley below. Two marinas anchor the lake's commercial base: Canyon Lake Marina on the north shore, home to Baja BBQ Shack and Breakwater Grill & Cantina, and Cranes Mill Marina on the northwest shore, named for one of the two rural communities the lake submerged. River Rose Tavern and Wildflour Artisan Bakery & Grill cover the lake's west side near Startzville, and Gennaro's Trattoria handles Italian. The lake's best-known feature isn't manmade: on July 4, 2002, floodwater topped the dam's emergency spillway for the first time since the reservoir was built, and in three days carved a 64-acre gorge through Cretaceous limestone, exposing fossils and dinosaur tracks 110 million years old — now open for guided walking tours through the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority. Sattler's Lowe's Market covers the grocery run; New Braunfels, twenty minutes south, covers the hospital.
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