"They were beckoning mountains with a brown grass love."
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
A few weeks ago, before the fervor of the holidays, I set out on a day trip to Enchanted Rock, in a car with 4 guys and a dog. They were going rock climbing, and I was armed with 2 sandwiches, an apple, a cookie, trail mix, some raisins, and a book. We headed out of Austin early in the morning, drinking coffee out of a thermos, listening to the radio as we drove through Bee Caves, towards Llano, down hill country roads until we reached our destination. Enchanted Rock is a Texas State Park, the main feature of which is a granite dome that rises 425 feet into the air. There is a smaller dome, too, between which are boulders to scramble over, scrub trees, desert cactus and flowers, a creek and lovely green trees. There is ample rock climbing at the park, a cave to go spelunking in, and trails to stretch your legs on.
It is the most beautiful and sacred place in the Hill Country that I have seen. I first visited in the late summer when the heat was brutal on top of the dome, and we were most concerned with keeping the dog hydrated, while we explored the rock for an afternoon. This trip was calmer, my dog was at home asleep, our companion dog a veteran rock climber, who patiently waited for the boys to throw sticks in between routes.
It was sunny and warm, there was a breeze, and everything around us whispered in sunlight and dust. In the grocery store I had seen headlines and front page stories detailing other people’s grief, and I did my best to pass them up, trying to keep from sensationalizing their loss. Being here, on the closest thing to a mountain you can find in Central Texas, was akin to breathing a great sigh of relief. Once the boys were situated, I scooted back down the trail to an outhouse and reveled in the simple pleasure of evacuating outside. I also found time to take an artsy picture of some toilet paper. Enjoy.
After I dropped anchor I went and found an old oak tree that was creaking in the wind, and wrote in my journal, glad that no one knew where I was for a few minutes. I walked along the creek, past fields of grass, trained my camera on desert plants bathed in sunlight that filtered through the trees, and climbed back up the trail to the rock, where I promptly fell asleep on my pile of sweatshirts and jackets. I woke and ate a sandwich, read my book, and just stared out into the landscape. From higher up, we could see the contours of the land, the hills off in the distance, the clouds moving softly through the afternoon.
I felt the same kind of reverent peace that I have felt before in the mountains, or on a pile of driftwood logs by the ocean, or walking into a clearing in the forest. There is room for everything- for our grief, our uncertainty, our sweet sadness and our silence. I thought back to other backpacking and day trips I've taken that I still remember- singing songs to darkened hills, boxed wine shared with friends, thunderstorms and card games in a tent, a sky heavy and ripe with stars. This is the joy of the wilderness.
I missed the mountains of my home, towering Cascades with alpine lakes and fields of wildflowers, shedding their raincoats in late summer for folks to walk through their foothills and up their beautiful ridges. But also, I loved Texas in that moment.
Inevitably, the sun began to sink, and we trekked back across the boulders, ready to hunt down a dinner of hamburgers and milkshakes when we got back to town. Some days are laced with magic, other days never make it out of pajamas, and sometimes we get lucky- a sunny day spent on enchanted rocks, Texas in late December.
