The Texas Hills

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Cream of the Country

Dear to the hearts of Texans.

By Sara Pacher

Photographs by Shelly Katz

In less than 30 minutes I'd left the bustle and fast traffic of Austin—Texas's dynamic state capital—far behind and entered a wide-open, undulating landscape embroidered with the pink of blossoming peach orchards. A turnoff on a county road at the tiny town of Dripping Springs led to a rolling, curving ride through charming countryside, where, although it was only early March, bright clumps of daffodils and wild redbud trees hinted at the spectacular show of wildflowers that would erupt during April, May and June. These same fields and roadsides will then be covered with far more than their share of the 5,000 wildflowers found in the Lone Star State: bluebonnets (the state flower), cherry red Drummond's phlox, bright yellow Engelmann's daisies, fiery Indian blankets, pink evening primroses, black-eyed Susans and purplish lemon mint, to name just a few. But in March, as throughout the winter, the most prominent color was that of dark green huddles of fat cedars thickly dotting the rocky, dun-colored hillsides. Old limestone ranch houses squatted long and low under stands of live oaks, which were just starting to shed last year's still-green leaves in preparation for a burst of new foliage when spring rains would green the entire landscape.

Rounding a curve, I had my first encounter with a resident of this unique and muchloved section of Texas: a man getting out of a pickup truck to check his mailbox. He gave me a friendly smile and a wave. I suddenly felt right at home—and that, to me, proved to be the primary attraction of the Texas Hills: a sense of being welcomed.

Bigger Than Life

The Balcones Escarpment is a great crack in the earth that bisects all Texas, separating the Rocky Mountains upland from the coastal lowland. In only one section of the escarpment, however, is the distinctive topography of a fault in evidence. Along its edge is an area known as the "Hill Country," ranging over a dozen or so small central Texas counties. I chose to spend most of my time in five of these: Gillespie, Blanco, Hays, Comal and Kendall.

People accustomed to the soaring heights of the Rockies, the Sierras or even the older, round-shouldered Appalachians might scoff at the reverent adoration given to these modest protuberances of central Texas, but to the natives of the flat, humid coastal lands and the seemingly endless high plains, plateaus and deserts that make up so much of the rest of the state, they are little short of a miracle. On closer look, the awe is justified.

Much of the region's magic is due to the abundance of water. Rivers, like the mighty Colorado and the roaring Guadalupe, wind through the hills and are dammed to form lakes for power production, fishing and recreation. Countless creeks, large and small, can be found flowing through the small valleys. Springs with romantic names like Jacob's Well gush millions of gallons a minute. Most of the creek beds and riverbeds are of limestone laid down approximately 140 million years ago, during the early Cretaceous period, when shallow Mesozoic seas covered the area. This limestone results in water as crystal clear and, in many places, as blue as that of the Caribbean, and, throughout the region, ancient marine-life fossils as well as the arrowheads and stone tools of former Native American residents can be found for the looking. This firm bedrock also makes for flash floods. On the night of June 5, 1985, 15 inches of rain in southern Blanco County sent an unexpected 42-foot wall of water through Hays County downstream, where it hadn't rained at all. Miraculously, no lives were lost, but damage was in the millions, and the flood's destructive force can still be seen in the twisted and broken limbs of the centuries-old cypress trees that line the banks of the Blanco River. (The possibility of floods must be kept in mind when buying or building in the region—and, during the rainy times, even when driving over normally safe water crossings.)