Weather Adventures on Enchanted Rock

Yesterday started out as a beautiful but hot day in Central Texas; the weather was forecasted to be partly cloudy with a slight chance of thunderstorms.  Well since I was off, Sara and I decided to drive over to Enchanted Rock outside of Fredericksburg, Texas and spend the day scrambling up and around the giant granite rock.  The hike started off great, I was snapping tons of photos of the amazing landscape around us as well as enjoying the trail up to the top.  When we had reached the top the temperature had dropped a good 10 degrees and there was a slight breeze blowing but we shrugged it off because in truth it felt great compared to the heat of the hike up.  As we began to descend the rock, we noticed that the sky was getting increasingly dark and that we could feel tiny rain drops hitting our hands.  I figured that it was probably just a mid-day heat shower so I packed my camera away in my bag and found a cave for Sara and I to sit in while the shower passed over.  For the next ten minutes we sat there while the rather uneventful shower blew over and as the rainfall began to decrease I stepped out to see if it was save to begin down the rock again...it wasn't even close to being safe.  In the distance I could see a sheet of rain leading an enormous black cloud straight towards our location.  I went back in the cave and told Sara that we were gonna be there for at least another 30 minutes or so and to just sit tight.  As this storm blew through the winds cranked up to about 25mph and we were getting soaked by the sideways rain.  We tried to crawl deeper into the cave but we were met by a colony of spiders (Daddy Long Legs to be exact) coming out to feed on the insects that would soon find shelter in the cave.  So we sat right on the edge of the cave while the storm raged on, getting soaked and chilled the whole time.  As soon as this wave had calmed down I stepped out of the cave again to see what the sky looked like and Sara told me all she heard around the corner was me saying "Oh crap" then walking around to her and telling her "we have ten minutes to get down".  Another storm, even larger than the last one, was coming in and we still had 200 feet of descent to go.  The scramble down was like the scene out of an action movie, we slid down the face of the granite for a good 75 feet until we reached the boulders that litter the bottom of the rock and then sprinted across the crushed granite shores of the creek until we had to cross the flash flood that was blocking the path to Sara's car.  Keep in mind that as we were making our descent the skies were getting darker and the rain and wind were picking up heavily.  Well, we made it across the flash flood to a bathroom where we hid out for about another hour or so before the storm finally let up enough for us to sprint to the car and get the heck out of dodge.  It was probably the most exciting and most dangerous thing I've done in a long time.  I'll be posting some pictures of the pre-storm hike and one final shot of us huddled up in the bathroom during the worst part of the storm.