JACOBS WELL ~ WIMBERLY, TEXAS

My sister had seen several pictures of Jacobs Well on the internet showing people jumping or diving into this blue hole (see the 3 photos below ).  

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   These are some of the photos you will find if you do a google search for Jacobs Well.

You will see various people jumping or diving into this deep blue hole.

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  Even though it took my sister and I two hours to get to this place, we were exited to check out this place that had been deemed one of the most intriguing swimming holes in the United States.  

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After finding the turn off to this place, we parked our car in an almost empty parking lot.  

Here is what you will see from the parking lot. 

This is what we saw as we made our way to the water.  There is a board crossing over to a concrete wall where you can easily access the cleaner water are where the hole is located. 

As you can see, there was a lot of green algae on the other side of the concrete wall.

The biggest surprise of all was of how small the hole was.  When you first walk up to the water it looks like many other rivers or steams with  beautiful rock outcroppings.  To the side, you see a small hole in the stone slab.  

Check out the picture below ~ see the person diving into the hole?  Now scroll back up and look at what the hole really looks like.  My heart dropped thinking about all of the people risking their lives to jump or dive into this small hole (the hole is only 12  feet across the top and narrows as it goes down)

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After doing some research, I found out that this is considered on of American's most deadly diving spots.  Some of the deaths was caused by swimmers jumping  and some by divers going into the underground caverns.  I also read that the spring dried up 2000 making it even more dangerous

According to a historian, the spring was so strong during the 50's that you couldn't  sink in the well because the spring would just bubble you right back up.  

THE BASICS:

Main entrance located at 1699 Mount Sharp Road, Wimberley, Texas 78676.

Parks information line: 512-847-2140

Hours of Operation: Sunday – Saturday 10 am – 8 pm DST and 10 am – 6 pm CST

Starting in May, 1, 2015, you will have to pay a fee to swim and it will only be for a 2 hour period of time.  I'm curious to see how well this works for them and if people are willing to pay $9 to swim for two hours.

TO KNOW:

• There are several rules and regulations in place such as no pets, glass containers, or alcohol.  You can check out all of the rules HERE.
• If you are only going to be there for 2 hours, you probably won't be spending a lot of your time eating or drinking but I would carry some water along since I didn't see any place to purchase drinks on site.  I was there off season and things will probably be different during the summer months. 
• Like many of the other places I have written about the Texas Hill Country, you will be doing some walking.  Once side of the stream is flat and is pretty easy to access but the other side will require climbing around rocks so take caution if you have mobility issues.

WHAT WOULD I DO DIFFERENTLY:

Get better directions - there is signage coming from one direction of the highway but no signage the way we came.