The open Edwards Plateau uplands above the canyon — live-oak mottes, grassland and big sky, and how utterly different the dry high country is from the green canyon below.
Now that you've topped out, look at how completely the world has changed up here. Down in the canyon it was cool and shady and green and wet. Up here on the plateau it's open, bright, breezy, and dry — a whole different country, just a few hundred feet higher.
This is the true face of the Edwards Plateau: rolling grassland studded with tough, gnarled live oaks that grow in little clumps the old-timers call mottes, scattered cedar between them, under a big Hill Country sky. It's beautiful in a spare, wide-open way — and it's the best possible reminder of how special that canyon below really is. This dry, sun-baked upland is the normal Hill Country, stretching for miles in every direction. That lush maple canyon you climbed out of is the rare exception, the hidden green pocket. Enjoy the breeze and the long views while you're up on the high ground. The trail will lead you back down into the green soon enough.
Photo: Lorenzo The Snail · CC BY-SA 4.0
