Some of you have asked about this area of Texas. Many have stated , "I thought Texas was flat. Are there hills in Texas?" Well the answer is yes and no. It depends what your experience with mountainous terrain is. I was born and raised in the South Bay of the San Fransisco Bay Area in the tri-city area of the silicon valley. Right in the area of Los Gatos, Campbell and San Jose, CA. Let me tell you we had the Coastal Range to west and the Diablo Range to the east. All about 4,000 feet tall. Not the tallest in the country, but we were within a 3 hour drive of Mt. Whitney in Sequoia National Park. Those hills are 14,000 feet! I would travel to those mountains including Yosemite Nat'l Park, often all through my life. That's grandeur!
Ok, so from that perspective, the "Hill Country" of Texas which is really a part of the Edwards Plateau region has a rise from about 600 feet to 3000 above sea level. Here's an illustration that will help you see where in Texas this is:
Hill Country about in the middle of the state and provides the crossroads between east / west and north/south. For reference, I live near the Waco area. We're in the Prairie and Lakes region.
Here's a photo I borrowed to help you see what Hill Country actually looks like:
Very pretty landscape no doubt, but, let's compare to Central Coastal California where I'm from:
Diablo Range near Mt. Hamilton
Coastal Range looking at Mt. Umunhum
Perhaps the perspective isn't well shown here in the photos, but a 600 foot rise in Texas, vs a 4000 foot rise in CA is quite a contrast. Both of the CA pictures are very near where I lived so these views were with me daily. Yes, That's snow. In spite of popular belief, California has snow.
Now to be fair, this is what I see daily now that I live in Texas:
I live walking distance from the lake and a couple of rivers are very near by. Beautiful. But flat.
Having now been a in Texas a couple years and feel I can form an informed opinion, I'll give it to you. When it comes to hills and many things about Texas, where the saying goes, "Everything is big in Texas" the only thing really big about Texas is Texans opinion about Texas. But cow's horns are pretty big! This Long Horn is from across the road from us.
