Campground Review: Balmorhea State Park, Toyahvale, TX

Balmorhea State Park was a pretty reasonable 239 miles from our last stop in Las Cruces, NM and turned out to be a perfect place to refresh ourselves between back-to-back driving days.

The focal point of this small state park is San Solomon Spring and the enormous pool of its crystal clear waters. The park was built in the 1930's by the amazing Civilian Conservation Corps and you can swim, scuba dive, picnic, camp or rent a motel room here.

The pool holds 3.5 million gallons of water, more than 15 million gallons flow through it each day, the water remains between 72 and 76 degrees year round, it ranges from 3 feet to 25 feet deep and covers 1.75 acres. Oh, and there are two types of small, endangered desert fish that clean your toes while you swim!

This photo shows maybe a third of the pool.
Hans is hanging out at the edge of the drop off...the deep blue water behind him is 20 feet deep!

Nice looking Spanish-style buildings dot the property.
There's a scuba lesson taking place left center.

Fish pedicure!

A motel building behind Hans, and one of several small canals that carry the spring water into the desert.

Texas Spiny Soft Shelled Turtle.

A snake in the canal.

Green heron.

The park has 28 water/electric sites and six water only sites, all with decent separation. We had site 27, a pull out site which had a more private sitting area than most of the sites. We had full 4G Verizon signal using our booster. There is a little bit of road noise from the minor highway outside the park, but it's really quiet at night.

Water/Electric sites are only $14/night but Texas also charges $7 PER PERSON/PER DAY to enter this state park. Since we're spending the next couple of months in this state we purchased a state parks pass.

Site 27 sitting area.

Here's a nice looking pull out site (#26) with a ramada.

Looking across the open area behind the back in sites.
Most sites have ramadas.

Balmorhea turned out to be a wonderful place to overnight, just what the doctor ordered after having to drive through El Paso!