Adventures of a swimming hole aficionado

Last week I drove to Austin, Texas for the Ecological Society of America conference. When I found out I was going to Austin, the first thing that came to mind was that I would be within driving distance of this really sweet swimming hole called Krause Springs that I had seen in the movie Teeth.



The day before I left Austin, I decided to take an excursion to Krause Springs. The drive through the Texas Hill Country was really pretty (almost like Boone with a Tex-Mex twist), and the swimming hole ended up being as good as it looked. I had to pay to get in (and sign a waiver) because it was located on a family-owned campground. Up the hill from the swimming hole was a spring-fed swimming pool, and the water flowing out of the pool went over the cliff into the swimming hole.

( Click here for the full trip report with photos )
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This was originally part of a longer, non-public entry I wrote in 2011, but I am re-blogging this excerpt of it in 2016 so I can post it publically as a swimming hole trek. I am back-dating it to the date of the original entry so it will appear chronologically. The text is verbatim from the original entry and facebook photo captions (which I wrote the same day I made the excursion), but the original LJ entry didn’t include photos. I made this trip on August 11, 2011. I implied in my entry for Harper Creek Falls that that was my first solo swimming hole trek, but I had forgotten that Krause Springs actually holds that distinction.

I did not include in the original entry that I also went to Barton Springs Pool the day before going to Krause Springs. I thought the Barton pool was pretty, but there’s nothing especially natural or pristine about it. It is basically just a spring-fed swimming pool in a city park near downtown Austin. You can actually see the downtown buildings from the pool. The sides are concrete with ladders, lifeguard stands, and a diving board, but there are some natural rock banks on the upstream end of the pool.

( Photos of Barton Springs Pool )

There is a dam at the downstream end, so I’m not sure if the pool itself is natural at all. The bottom of the pool is pretty cool, though. There are large fields of algae about eight feet high, and you can swim down and twirl around in what looks like a field of seaweed. Obviously, I can’t give an accurate play-by-play of the experience since I’m writing this portion five years later, but I do remember that the water seemed quite chilly. I think it was around 70 °F, but the air temperature was over 100 °F, so it was kind of a stark contrast. I’m not sure I would call this a swimming hole; it is basically just a glorified swimming pool without chlorine, but as swimming pools go, it is one of the best ones I have been to.