Enchanted Rock
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Enchanted Rock is located west of Interstate 35 at the Ranch Road 965 between Austin and San Antonio 29 km north of Fredericksburg in Gillespie County of the U.S. state of Texas. Thus, the 665 -acre state park in the northeast of the Hill Country region is located at 556 m above sea level. The eponymous dome-shaped granite monolith stands 130 meters from the environment and thereby covers 259 hectares, with the bulk of the batholith is not exposed by the eroding forces and is still below the surface. Enchanted Rock is one of the largest batholiths of the North American continent. Only the Stone Mountain in Georgia is bigger and already the Independence Rock in Wyoming is much smaller.
The name is due to the noise caused by the sun during the heating and cooling of the rock layers. This creates stress cracks and detachments in the upper layers, whose sounds were assigned to the spirits of the stone of the Tonkawa.
The first descriptions of the area are of Spaniards from the mid-17th century before. In 1970, on the National Register of Historic Places as the Enchanted Rock National Natural Landmark in 1984.
The state park is at times so very busy that the visitor intake is regulated and is closed to other visitors. The Enchanted Rock can be climbed only by simple means, if the rock is not damaged.
The only sporadically covered rock is surrounded by large oak trees, mesquite Prosopis juliflora Grasslands with Buchloe dactyloides and as well as a floodplain landscape. Fox Squirrel, Felsenziesel and armadillos come in the park as often before, such as rabbits, lizards, and the eye-catching turkey vulture.