An Amazing Day at Enchanted Rock

As you drive Ranch Road 965 , you find yourself in the rolling hills of the Texas Hill Country, viewing a mix of fields and trees.  Suddenly your eye is caught by two huge pink granite formations.  Then you come around another corner or two and find the sign for Enchanted Rock State Natural Area.

I was longing to revisit this magical place again.  I've only been here twice before, once on a weekend camping trip with the Sierra Club, and once for a day hike by myself.  I slept in and didn't get here until about 9:00 but the day was exceptionally cool, although sunny,  and I expected to have a great hike.

I decided to do the Summit Hike first since it has no shade and I wanted to see the vernal pools that make up a special tiny ecosystem ,and wanted to see the view of the surrounding world from 425 feet up. 

Instead of walking straight to the top, then back down, I chose to wander around the dome and get off the path most people were following. I started finding the vernal pools, little ephemeral ponds that form microhabitats and host fairy shrimp, which hatch and grow, then the females lay eggs that survive the dry seasons between rains.  The plants are also interesting and form beautiful textures.  Some of the pools were dry and only supported plants, while others were mostly open water with only a few plants at the edge.

Contrast in the vegetation with a tiny light green plant growing along the edge and a darker green plant growing in the middle

Some pools contained taller plants

Trees even grew in some pool but these were dead

View down to Moss Lake

Instead of coming all the way back to the start of the Summit Trail and starting on another trail, I just cut across the batholith.  I enjoyed the views of the rock and, as I descended, found lots of eroded rock. While this area looks static at first glance, in geological time it is very active, with weathering causing layers to crack and peel off in blocks.

My next small adventure started on a rock face that looked kind of like the next picture - I didn't have time to take pictures while I was trying not to slide completely off.  The slope got too steep for me to comfortably walk, so I tried sitting down and immediately began sliding.  I was close to a rock seam that was full of shrubs so I grabbed them and worked my way down.





Then I saw that I was running out of rock and the underbrush was too thick to traverse,  so I started looking for an alternate path. My best chance appeared to be in a little fissure that made a small tunnel. I took it down to the almost dry creek bed and then cut the trail, although, at that spot, it wasn't really evident and was still pretty hard to navigate.

Looking back up at my escape tunnel

Yeah! I'm back on the trail -  if those old guys can do it, surely I'll make it

Soon I noticed a purple post and thought it marked the Turkey Pass trail but instead, it climbed sharply up to one of the climbing areas. There I found a group of high school students learning to climb and, I'm sure, in the process, develop self confidence. This was a dead end trail so I had to go back down and try again.

I was now on the north side of the batholith and mostly walking in shady woods. I saw several birds going about their lives while enjoying the steep climb up. Of course, I also had to climb back down, which sometimes was a little harder. At times, the trail again seemed to disappear and I was getting into steeper and steeper sections. I finally turned away from the batholith and caught the loop trail back  to the east side of the park.

A Bewick's wren singing his heart out

Sometimes the trail looked like this

And other times looked like this

Turning away from the rock led me to open meadows dotted with trees and full of wildflowers, with their pollinators. I spent a lot of time chasing butterflies as I could often see several species at once.

One of the painted ladies

The fallen rock becomes colonized into this

I found Moss Lake which was prettier at ground level than it was from the Summit

I think this is an American Painted Lady enjoying a wild onion bloom

I had another wonderful experience when I was almost back.  I looked down the trail and saw an animal turning off from the main trail to a side trail and disappearing. I had the impression it was raccoon.  I hurried to catch up with it and saw a beautiful black and white tail waving in the narrow trail through the wildflowers. I followed it as it went into one of the camp sites and  nosed around. I was watching it for several minutes but it never seemed to care that I was there. I'm sure it is adapted to being close to people and probably panhandles.

Ringed-tailed cat, a raccoon relative

I checked out the campground that is close to the parking lot and got one more view of Enchanted Rock in the afternoon sun with hikers still on it.  Then I went to Fredericksburg for a well deserved early supper at a German restaurant before heading back to my daughter's house.

I am currently in a motel room a few minutes out of Salt Lake City, Utah.  I was supposed to stay one more night at the Horsethief Campground, a BLM campsite near Island in the Sky.  But yesterday we had several showers and today was predicted to be colder and wetter. I woke up to frost, after the prediction was for forty-eight degrees, so decided to head up further north and stay in a motel.  This morning, I took two beautiful hikes, then stopped at the Moab library and edited my pictures, before heading out.  I left a sunny town, then drove through a few hours of rain and a little snow, and even followed a snowplow a short ways before arriving here. But tomorrow is supposed to be better so I'll check out Salt Lake before I head north.  But before you can see these adventures,  you'll have to see one more Texas adventure - my last paddle there for a long while. 

A Visit to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

I've been trying to get to Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, when I'm near

Austin,  but never quite made it. I decided to go while I was visiting my daughter.  I choose to go on a cloudy day since I thought the flowers would photograph better.  

Lady Bird Johnson's mission statement at the entrance

The entrance goes down all the columns which carry rainwater from the roofs to a tank - an great horned owl makes its nest at the upper right corner each year.  The guy is trying to get a picture of the last owl to fledge of the pair hatched

Antelope milkweed was blooming

The gardens between the cafe and office building

Volunteers were everywhere, weeding and planting

 I was particularly interested in seeing the new family garden.  I was very impressed with it.  It has lots of fun things for children to do, even lots of little stumps, twigs, and little logs to build with.  And they could climb and walk on big fallen trees and on platforms screened with woven twigs.

Lovely bench and view in the family garden

New structures in the family garden

A waterfall with a tunnel behind it

Faux cave paintings in another tunnel

One of the platforms had these objects

The center always has had demonstration gardens showing how to use native plants in any setting.  This is one of two cedar trees in the formal garden. I think it is the most amazing plant in the center. But I would not want to keep it sheared.

Sheared cedar tree

Cecropia caterpillar in the butterfly house

I love their rustic benches/trellises

A little cross vine was blooming

Coral honeysuckle was blooming

Wafer ash was making it's lovely little wafer seeds - beer makers can use the flowers as hop substitutes - and butterflies love it

On the personal front I'll be starting my own migration to Montana about the time this blog publishes.  I'm in the midst of trying to dig all my stuff out of various corners and getting it packed compactly enough to get it all to fit back in the Honda. I got to do a last Texas paddle today (May 3). I have visits scheduled with physical therapy, my hairdresser, and optician.  After two day of intensive driving, I'll have a few days to spend at Island in the Sky, a place I missed getting to see last year.  Hope you come along on my summer adventures.

The Beautiful Pedernales Falls State Park

I think the Medina River is the prettiest river I've paddled, but the Pedernales River is the most beautiful to see from land.  Paddling is not even allowed on portions of it and I have never paddled any of it. But I crave the views of the river as it runs through the Pedernales River State Park, so this was on my list of places to visit with my friend.

Monday, I left my daughter's house in time to get to the park just after sunrise.  The day was still cloudy after big storms came through a few hours earlier but the sun was fighting to regain the field.  I had to grab my camera and run to the overlook by the ranger station to catch  the beautiful light through a few holes in the cloud illuminating the fog lining the river.

Then I stopped at the bird blinds - there are now two of them across from a beautiful garden of native plants.  But the birds were scarce and the light was getting better so I headed on down to the big falls.

Getting to the falls is part of the beauty.  You walk through a tunnel of cedar trees to an overlook and then down steps to the rocks.  After that  you have to zig- zag across the granite to make it around crevices and little pools. But you have an ever changing view of the river as it wends its way through granite.

Fog on the river

The beginning of the trail to the scenic part of the river

View from the overlook

Rocks on the other side of the river

The rocks are etched even 100 feet above the river

Some of the solid granite

One set of falls

The river has carved its way through solid rock

Rocks, river and cypress

Wildflowers and rocks

After I walked most of the possible way along the falls area, I went to the campground and checked out the nature trail, looking for golden-cheeked warblers.  I didn't hear or see any but did find another waterfall - one I had never visited. That trail makes a loop down to the river and back up.  The last leg was steeper and went through some rock falls.

A set of falls on a side stream

One of the steeper trails  - not the turn at the top - white arrow

Finally, I went to the swimming area and took the one hundred steps down to the beach.  This brought back fond memories of bringing my grandson here for the day. He carried his sand toys in a bag and I carried a tarp/poles, a sleeping pad, towels, water, lunch and snacks, and my hammock.  We would swim and play in the sand and then he would take a nap before we went home.  I would set up my hammock between the cypress right along the river and read.

This area had the most wildflowers I've seen here.  The cool, wet spring is definitely making everything grow. The pollinators were all busy collecting neter and pollen.  And the warm days had lots of lizards out and about.

A cabbage butterfly enjoying the flowers

Bees were gathering pollen and nectar

This lizard looked like he was wearing a sweater

Pedernales River at the swimming area

Underwater rocks - my grandson and I loved this spot

A damselfly

Another pollinator

The beginning of the hundred steps back up to the parking lot