The Hill Country’s Rock of Ages

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Boulders from another planet? Not so. It’s a striking abstract of stone, sunlight, shadow, and sky at Enchanted Rock.
A ghostly breeze whispers to the bald expanse of a giant, granite dome. Sparkling like a thousand tiny mirrors in the sun, the surface of the big rock, though mostly barren, seems to blush with a glow of inner life. Rock wrens flit above massive boulders, which cling to the mountain’s margins and lie in a tumble at its base, some sculpted by erosion into strange, ethereal figures. The tangled roots of gnarled live oaks snake between deep rock crevices, while delicate ferns and wildflowers emerge from tiny fissures in the stone.

This is ever-radiant Enchanted Rock, a noble promontory rising high above the Hill Country between Llano and Fredericksburg. A supreme specimen of Texas pink granite, this hemisphere is the state’s largest mountain made of a single rock, and it is among the oldest exposed rocks in North America.

Enchanted Rock State Natural Area—purchased from private owners in 1977 by The Texas Nature Conservancy and sold to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department the following year—actually boasts more than one granite formation. These domes of various sizes attract more than 300,000 visitors each year.

See the full article in the March 2000 issue.

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