Be Glad the Hot Springs in Texas Aren’t THIS Hot
Any guess exactly how hot this "hot spring" is?
We have some great hot springs in Texas that have become swimming holes, but you wouldn't even want to dip a toe into this one. Do you know where it is?
I took my daughter to Yellowstone National Park this summer on a quest to see a wolf, and although that journey was a big fat fail (wolves are better seen in the winter it seems), we did see some other fascinating things like moose, elk, and these smokin' hot, hot springs.
Yellowstone has several of these hot water features around Old Faithful in the western side of the park, but we saw this steamy bed on the eastern side at a place called West Thumb.
Part of Yellowstone sits on a volcano, and that means some odd landscape features will pop up creating steam, mud bubbles, and super hot mini-lakes. The tour guide told me that this one reaches 221 degrees Celsius, which would be over 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Ouch. It looks so blue and inviting. But ouch. Even in the winter with 10 to 12 feet snow all around, this water feature is cranking out heat. The bison and bears must love this all-natural space heater.
Many of the hot springs around Texas are swimmable, but of course, we're not sitting on top of a volcano that we know of. Krause Springs over in Spicewood and Barton Springs Pool in Austin are some of our best known hot springs, and those are consistently around 70 degrees Fahrenheit. The Rio Grande Village Springs, Big Bend National Park is usually around 97 degrees (body temperature).
I guess we should know the temp before we jump in because blue is not always cool. But if there are tacos and margaritas nearby we're probably safe, right? Maybe Austin is not so weird after all.