Christmas on Enchanted Rock.

Little Bro & I made our way to San Antonio on Christmas eve to climb Enchanted Rock. I couldn't find any information on it closing on Christmas day and felt like driving along long stretches of road, so I convinced my reluctant brother to come with me to Fredericksburg, population 10,530. After spending Christmas Eve watching random shows on the Discovery Channel in San Antonio, we woke up early to head over to Enchanted Rock.

As we pulled in closer to the park, we could see the pink granite dome in the distance!

It really is pink.

Welcome, visitors

On the website, I'd read that the park can reach full capacity around 10AM (it opens at 8AM), and visitors are often turned away to return after 5PM. On this Christmas day, there were few other visitors and we were able to get in around lazy ten o'clock. 

We made our way past the gravel trails and the huge boulders.

Someone's too cool for the camera

Crossing the streams and the huge jagged boulders, we reached the pink dome. It is a steep climb but relatively easy, there were even families with little kids walking up. The tricky part was that it had rained yesterday and with the overcast sky that morning, the rocks were wet and icy.

Look at the incline

Trekking up

I finally reached the highest plateau and walked around! It was freezing (the weather forecast told me low 30's plus the altitude? My phone froze, literally).

Five layers and still red eyes/nose

Here's a close-up of the 1-billion-years-old pink granite, with huge crystals... although you can't tell without a reference scale.

granite close-up

Trees, cacti and algae growing on top, elevation 1825 feet

Okay, so after Little Brother made his way down, I spent quite a bit of time up here because... I forgot which way I'd come up. After you climb up the boulders, there is no set trail to follow on, you walk up the dome any way you like, and I hadn't taken notice of my path up. Also because the dome is so steep, it is hard to look down for the path you came up. I made a few rounds until I saw another family come up, and I made my way down. No repeat of 127 Hours there.

scenic route back down

The best thing about taking a road trip in 30-40F weather is that your car becomes an instant fridge. We threw our food in the trunk and the food kept cold during the entire trip. Now we're back in Houston, spent and tired, but we stopped by Buc-Ee's on our way back! I thought we'd passed by the Luling location until I turned the corner and saw the familiar Beaver sign.

Typical Buc-Ee's.

Zzzzz.