Search for the spring


Yesterday afternoon Jacob and I walked and swam a 5-mile stretch of the Blanco River in search of Pleasant Valley Springs. It’s an interesting spot for two reasons: first, the spring provides most of the water flowing through Wimberley and the Balcones Fault, so it’s incredibly important to the people, plants and animals living in this region of the Hill Country; and second, because the spring was not even discovered until 2013.

This was the scene when we parked at Valley View Road and began the hike:

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But soon we came to a narrow spot where the river began to flow:

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Then it widened into a pretty pool:

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A couple of guys from Wimberley joined us on the trip.

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We saw one beautiful view after another.

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We started the trip at about 3 p.m., and it took us longer to travel the river than we were expecting. We were taking our time and chatting with the people we occasionally met, and making photographs, and time slipped away from us. By 6 p.m. we had only covered about one third of the distance. We began to hurry, hoping to beat the dark, and we ended up going right past the spring. Jacob and I are heading back to the same stretch this afternoon, this time with the kayaks we borrowed from Austin Canoe & Kayak. We’ll get a better look this time.

Wes and Jacob’s Blanco River book project is being funded by the Burdine Johnson Foundation, sponsored by the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, and published by Texas A&M University Press.


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