Enchanted Rock State Natural Area, a gem of a state park in Texas…

Since we have been moving pretty slow and with rainy weather on its way we decided to move about 55 miles northwest over to the quaint German influenced town of Fredericksburg, Texas. We found a Passport America park just south of town called Oakwood RV Resort. They allow a three night stay with the discount so that is what we booked and at under 20 per night this park is perfect for us to do a little sight seeing and wait for the passage of the bad weather headed this way.

Our first day here was sunny and in the mid 80’s so we took full advantage of the good weather and headed over to Enchanted Rock State Natural Area. This park has a special meaning to me as it was the last Parks and Wildlife Property that I helped set up management for before I left my job as a Biologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife. This park was also the main reason I left since I got into a disagreement with Park Management about how tall our boundary fence should be. You see with all the exotic wildlife in this area the only way to exclude them from the park would be to install a 12 foot high fence around its perimeter.

A fence of that height would keep even the best of the climbing exotics from entering the park. Since they made this park a State Natural Area and not a state park I felt this was a critical piece to protecting the natural environment of the park. Also species such as the Blanco Crabapple were all but wiped out in the park lands since some of the exotics love to eat the plant. But enough of my rant about what I felt at that time… Enchanted Rock is still one of the best state parks to visit for a great hike in the entire state of Texas!

Enchanted Rock is composed of a large dome of granite and is part of a Batholith that stretches 62 square miles with most of it being underground. It is the second largest batholith in the United States and rates second only to Stone Mountain in Georgia. It is also known as an exfoliation dome which means it has layers like an onion that “shed off” as it weathers due to erosive forces. But it is simply a special place to me…

Sharon and I hiked up to the summit and down the back side of the dome and had an absolute blast! Love, love, love the granite country of Texas… We are about to leave and I am still one blog behind (two if you count the one I will write about my slide repair) but we need to move on over to Junction Texas this morning!