Enchanted Rock Natural area is about 19 miles outside of Fredericksburg and it has about 8 miles of trails. We have been really antsy to get some decent hiking in, and chose yesterday to go there based on the weather forecast. I started out the day with two sweatshirts on and by 2 pm they were both tied around my waist. The rock is a 450 ft tall pink granite exfoliation dome that is part of one of the largest batholiths in the U.S. A batholith is an underground rock formation that becomes uncovered by erosion. 
Although it doesn’t look that big in the pictures, the part that protrudes from the earth (which is really the “tip of the iceberg”) covers 640 acres. We first took the trail that went straight to the summit, in case we ran out of steam later. It was pretty steep, a good cardio workout!
Once at the top, we were surprised to see the vernal pools, like oases in the midst of solid granite. Over a period of many years enough dirt settles into these basins to allow algae to grow, then small plants take root and eventually larger plants, even trees, settle in to these small pockets of water. 
We had a great day- this is our favorite kind of hike. It was enough of a cardio workout, somewhat of a challenge, and had plenty for us to see and explore along the way. And the weather was perfect for it.
An exfoliation dome erodes by essentially sloughing off it’s outer skin, like the peeling of an onion, instead eroding one grain of sand at a time. We could see evidence of the exfoliation on this chunk of granite, and although the layer peeling off is thin in some places, it’s not as thin as it appears.
the picture below is the same shot as this picture, but zoomed in closer. In the picture below, you can see the hikers climbing down the boulders. We could hear them, and the 3 girls were not very happy with the 3 guys. The guys were happily scrambling down the side of the dome and the girls were not convinced that they were going to make it down safely (they did, though).
