Enchanted Rock State Natural Area

Enchanted Rock is a pluton, a mass of molten rock that cooled deep underground in the middle Precambrian and was laid bare by erosion. Its summit stands 1,825 feet above sea level, some 385 feet above the bed of Sandy Creek, and it belongs to a segmented ridge of the same granite. In 1992 a University of Texas geophysicist, Ian Dalziel, linked the rock with granite peaks in Antarctica.

The dome is known for two things it does at night. It glitters on clear nights after rain, which scientists put down to moonlight on water trapped in its hollows or on wet feldspar. On cool nights after warm days it creaks and groans as its outer surface contracts. Tonkawa people, as Texas Parks and Wildlife tells it, took the lights for ghost fires and were frightened by the sounds. Earlier people left bedrock mortars, the hollows where they ground food, and the park counts more than 400 archeological sites, 120 of them State Archeological Landmarks.

The Moss family opened the rock to visitors in 1927. When Charles Moss sold it in 1978, The Nature Conservancy bought it and passed it to the state, and the natural area opened that year. It is a National Natural Landmark and an International Dark Sky Park. The Summit Trail is one of about 22 miles of trails, and climbers must check in at headquarters.