Balmorhea; the Spring and the Lake

This morning Bud and I walked over without Matey to see the San Solomon Spring.

It took two pictures to capture the main pool of the 3.5 million gallon swimming pool.

There are two wings off the main pool. One is 3 to 5 feet deep and includes this platform and lift to lower disabled people to the pool. It’s not every swimming pool that has a warning to not feed or catch the wildlife!

The depth quickly increases in the main pool.

Most of it is 25 feet deep.

There are areas where the bottom is left natural and the depth varies.

I wanted to look for the wildlife, but the wind was making it hard.

There was an area of relatively flat water by the diving board in the main pool. We saw some of the little fish there…

and I managed to get a picture of one.

The other arm seemed to have a more natural bottom than the shallow arm, I think it was the original channel. It was deeper and had ducks on the water.

And we saw a Texas spiny soft shelled turtle swimming along. I took several distorted pictures through the wavy water. In this one , I think I caught an endangered Comanche Springs pupfish, now found only in the spring fed waters near Balmorhea.

I also thought I saw some headwaters catfish, similar to a channel catfish but a separate species. Since the water mostly looked like this, pretty but very distorting, I wasn’t positive and got no image.

The best way to see these creatures is to get in the water and go snorkeling. We didn’t, we no longer have snorkeling gear and though the water is constantly in the low seventies, the air was only in the upper sixties and the wind was blowing. The thought of getting out of the water into that wind was enough to deter me.

Here Bud is looking at the gates at the outlet to the pool.

I took this video to show how fast the water is moving. There are three openings that allow the water to pass out of the pool area. The spring flows at a rate of 15 million gallons a day.

It flows through a series of small canals. Some is bled off to the quiet cienagas to support the native wildlife.

Some flows into and past the little town of Balmorhea. it is used to irrigate crops, and apparently pine trees.

And much of it flows into Balmorhea Lake, about four miles away, where it is held in reserve.

We took a ride out to Balmorhea Lake to hopefully walk Matey and look at wildlife. We had to pay $7 each for a permit.

There wasn’t much scenery. (Those are our permits taped in the windshield, one for the state park and one for the lake).

And the only animals we saw were some cattle grazing in the very lush grass…

at the lower side of the dam.

But at least we got to see where the water goes.

And we got to see the sometimes funky,

but mostly rundown lake houses folks have out there.

And so my opinion remains. It was nice to see the spring, but two nights and one day is plenty of time to spend in this place.