The glass-clear pools of the Sabinal and what lives in them — Guadalupe bass, turtles, the rare green kingfisher — and a word on treading lightly.
Take a good look into the water as you pass these pools, because the Sabinal runs clear as glass and there's a whole world living in it. Step up quietly to the edge of a still green pool and you may spot fish holding in the current — sunfish, and maybe a Guadalupe bass, the official state fish of Texas, which lives only in these Hill Country streams and nowhere else. Turtles sun on the rocks and slide off with a plop when you get close. Dragonflies patrol the surface. And now and then a flash of green and rust darts low over the water — the green kingfisher, a jewel of a bird that's rare up here in the United States but right at home in this canyon.
One gentle word: this clear water is the lifeblood of the whole place, and it's fragile. So look all you like, but don't wade into the pools, and carry out everything you carry in. Tread light, and the next folks up the trail will see it just as clean. Keep following the water upstream.
Photo: G. Lamar · CC BY 2.0
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