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“Sun comes up in a whiskey color. The morning has a chilly wind and I struggle with the burner on the camp stove. It’s 7:07 AM and the only thing I need in the entire world is a cup of black coffee. If I was home in Austin I would have just walked to any of the many coffee shops in my neighborhood, but on hitch we are deprived of those modern luxuries so I settle for instant coffee. Each sip tastes like acid as I watch my fellow crew members trickle out of their tents and pour their own cups. Together we prepare for the work day as the morning sun rises higher and heats distant hills with a pink glow. We’re at Enchanted Rock SNA, in the heart of the Texas hill country. In early 2025 Texas Parks and Wildlife purchased over 3,000 acres of the surrounding land, tripling the park in size. Our project for this hitch is to create a trail connecting the main trail system to part of the new property. This trail will act as a gateway to previously unobtainable lands, so there is much anticipation for us to finish and open the trail to the public.

We’re in the van by 8 AM and it’s off to the worksite. We drive through a gate and down a deeply rutted dirt road; I hold myself tight in my seat lest I crack my skull on the window. By 8:30 we’re digging, crafting new trail. Cutting tread is a very technical process. You have to cut into the ground and create a path that’s flat enough to walk on but sloped just enough to allow water to flow off and down the hill, otherwise you’re just making a convenient channel for water to erode the trail. And that’s to say nothing of the obstacles you’ll have to route around, such as boulders and stinging insect nests. And cactus. Seas of cactus. Prickly pear. Pencil cactus. Horse crippler. Everything I own is now penetrated by cactus needles.

We work all day in the shadow of the Enchanted Rock. The bald dome rises above the whole landscape like a crashed moon stuck in the earth, surrounded by boulder canyons and hoodoo pillars like fingers clutching the sky. E-Rock has been a fixture of legends for centuries. The Tonkawa spoke of the rock breathing and groaning at night, affixing it with some spiritual significance and there are many tales of human sacrifice and battles raged at the base of the dome. Looking at the landscape it’s easy to see why it became a place of spiritual significance. It stands out in the prairie like a monolith, imposing as it is beautiful. Today the park is flocked with visitors from all around, with potentially hundreds of people ascending the rock each day. The trail TAT is building could end up being one of the most trafficked trails in the region, being an important new piece of an iconic public land.

The work day lasts about 9 hours. That’s 9 hours of swinging tools in the late summer heat, all while sweat runs down your temple and the sun cooks you alive. After a few good hours my muscles are sore and dirt is clinging to my skin like a film, but I keep swinging on. We work in true wild areas, surrounded by live oak and rocky prairie. It’s here where I spend hours analyzing the tread, trying to create a true work of art with the dirt and rocks. The soil here is loose and tough to work with, so I have to put extra attention into what I’m doing. I work away the hours crouching as my back groans and sweat permeates my hard hat. At the end of the day we get to admire how much longer our trail has grown thanks to our labor. Before long we’ll finish and have a complete piece of work to call our own. Until then it’s work, work, work.

The day ends and we head back to camp. I stumble out of the van and into a folding chair to decompress. At camp we have a view of “Little Dome,” another dome formed from the same geology as the main rock. The sky is a deep blue and white puffy clouds are billowing in the sky. For a moment it’s quiet and I feel a cool breeze on my skin as I watch Caracaras fly above the mesquite trees. Soon I’m whipping up curry on the camp stove, cooking as fast as possible to satiate the burning hunger I’ve worked up. The sun goes down in a honey color as we eat and laugh about the day. As night falls the stars begin to light up one by one until the sky is dotted with thousands of pieces of cosmic jewelry. After dinner we sit for hours playing cards under the moonlight. In between losing games I look up to admire the sky, studying the white smidge of the milky way and catching occasional shooting stars that spark across the night.

One after another the crew lumbers off to sleep, leaving me alone to sit and write. The night is alive with an orchestra of crickets and the distant howl of coyotes. We’re 4 days into the hitch, with another 6 to go. Tomorrow will be another early morning, another bumpy van ride, another long day of work. Before I take off to my tent I look to the sky one more time, staring deep into the cosmos. For a moment I stand there, thinking how lucky I am for an experience like TXCC.”

 

Conservation Corps Program