What a pleasant surprise! I was on my way to South Llano River State Park when I noticed something called Enchanted Rock State Natural Park on the map. Thinking it was some little cutesy rock of some kind I went anyway because of a four mile hiking trail I hoped might be interesting. I headed south from Llano on US 16 for 15 miles and then 8 miles west on TX 965. A couple of miles along TX 965 I could see a big red thing rising up above the rest of the countryside.
Enchanted rock is really pink granite, almost a mile long, I dunno how wide, and rises up 500 feet to an elevation of 1825 feet. It's one billion years old and is the bedrock from which the rest of Texas was formed. I'm getting ready to read James Michener's novel Texas again. It will be interesting to see how it compares to that. An info board says cigarette butts take 1-5 years to decompose while plastic 6-pack holders take 100 years, aluminum cans take 500 years and glass bottles take 1,000 years.
I'm camped right at the base of Enchanted Rock. Last evening I got restless and climbed up to the top of Little Rock, another peak rising several hundred feet. As I'm climbing the steep dome shaped slope I'm thinking this is too steep and there's no way I'll be able to climb back down this way. Several deer up there looked at me like I was crazy so they must have thought the same thing. When I got to the top it occurred to me it was close to 6pm and would be dark soon. Fortunately I found a way down relatively easily.
This morning I intended to do the four mile loop trail. Overcast skies kept the temperatures in the 40's and a 5-10 knot wind didn't help any. I soon spotted eight deer grazing nearby. As I stopped to watch for a moment, several of them started chasing each other and soon all of them were at it. Boy did they have a lot of energy.
From the time I followed the Loop Trail sign, I had trouble matching what I was seeing to the map. Somehow I got on the Turkey Pass Trail and two hours later found my way back near where I started. I have to say that was way up near the top of enjoyable and scenic hikes for me. Boulders, ledges, slopes, domes, valleys, gullies, prickly pear cactus, Spanish dagger, parasite encrusted live oaks, junipers, cedars ponds and pools the entire route. Good stuff!
After changing coats I hit the Enchanted Rock Summit Trail. The official trail ended 2/3 of the way up. From that point I just zig-zagged back and forth along the steep dome shaped slopes. Once at the top I could feel a strong 15 knot wind blowing. I went down the other side to see if I could find a cave over there. This is the north or the darker side and lots of gray lichen and some green lichen was growing on the granite. An info board below said gray lichen grows at a rate of .0004 inches per year. A four inch lichen cluster would have taken 1,000 years to grow. Puts a little different perspective on things. I didn't want to walk on them so turned back.
01-26-01:
A warm, overcast day and very, very humid. Setting out at 9am I followed the Summit Trail most of the way until the Echo Canyon Trail fork. I followed this trail down and along its boulder strewn floor. Good hiking boots with strong ankle support are required here. I passed through a boulder field with 10-20 foot high boulders and then went past two different climbing areas. And then I got myself turned around again somehow and ended up on the same return of the Loop Trail as yesterday. The park is all booked up for the weekend so I took off about 10:30am to find new accommodations.