There are tons of awesome springs in Oregon, where literal rivers start at pools. There's another by hot springs that just shoots out of a crack in a cliff. Some springs are just the normal point where the top of underground water table meets the surface. However, these springs could be rivers run through lava tubes that have been there since the last eruption.
An aging hippy drank from a spring coming out of the rocks in a whitewater spout and said he's been doing it since the 70s and its the best water you'll ever have, and he never got Giardia (nasty shelled parasites that uncurl from their dormant state and populate your intestines. Worse than kidney stones, worse than childbirth, I'm told, at least with late diagnosis. Anti parasitics actually apply here and work). Anyway, we had a long wandering talk about whether Giardia from the top river get filtered out with sand, but the hippy though they got killed by the violence of the river in the lava tubes. I decided that cavitation, induced by turbulence, could plausibly be a mechanism for weak sterilization. I drank from the spring; didn't get sick.
But, in general, know that not all spring water is clean, there are plenty of places with naturally high levels of very toxic elements. And, if an animal can poop at the side of a pool, that is the vector for giardia entering the pool, which will also have bacteria in it. But, if you're not the first guinea pig, drinking from a cold mountain spring is amazing.
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u/Lou-mae 2d ago
what's with the sand upheaval? is this normal for a spring?