The first difference you notice is the
size.
This is the biggest rock in Texas,
but there is something else not so
apparent.
It said that this rock has been touched
by magic.
Since man first began cutting pass
through the Hill country between L.A.
and Fredericksburg, this has been one
of the landmarks, a granite guidepost
for travelers, but it has also
been a sacrificial altar, a fortress
and a sanctuary.
It's called The Enchanted Rock,
the second largest mountain of stone in
the United States, only Stone
Mountain in Georgia is bigger.
It's one of the oldest things in Texas,
pushed out of the red hot center of the
earth a thousand million years ago,
left buried until time and erosion
swept it clean.
Today, it's also one of the newest state
parks and the Texas system so
new that it is basically undeveloped.
And for a small but growing number of
Texans who know of it, it's a popular
spot to climb out of the rush of city
life.
It's not a terribly difficult climb,
but you wouldn't want to try it in high
heels or leather soles.
And once you get to the top, it's pretty
spectacular.
For those who take their climbing
seriously, it's one of the few places in
the center of the state where they can
practice and adjacent Turkey Peak
is frequently challenged.
But most visitors to the getler slope of
the rock itself for a walk back
into time.
Near the top is a plaque that tells the
story of a Texas Ranger who fought off
a whole band of Comanches from the summit
of the Rock.
That's just one of the stories about the
place ancient
Indian legends tell of the last warriors
of a dying tribe who made the rock
their fortress.
And a legend say when they fell to
enemies, their spirits seized the rock.
The Comanches saw spirit fires glowing
on the moonlit summit and heard the
sounds of the spirits in the stone.
It said they made pilgrimages here and
offered human sacrifices to the spirits,
modern rock watchers say the spirit fire
is our only moonlight, reflecting on
water on the rock surface and that
the groaning sounds of the spirits are
heard only after a hot day as
the cooling rock and tracks.
More recent legends suggest that the
entrance to a Spanish gold mine lies near
the rock and that somewhere in the
jumbled boulders, even Zimbabwe's
fabled lost mine might still be
found.
But for some, the magic is neither in the
mystery of legends nor in the lure of
gold, but in the unchanging nature
of the rock itself, changes
here have been tiny ones as plants
slowly grind away at a crevice here
and water wears away a channel there.
But basically, this is one of the few
places in the state that is
as it was.
There have been suggestions for change
that the rock be made a Texas Mount
Rushmore with the faces of Texas heroes
carved into the granite.
But that never came to be.
And instead, the rock remains
not a memorial to men, but
to the land and its natural order.
Lee Elsesser, Channel 5 Action News
at The Enchanted Rock.