Floating the Canyons: A Rio Grande Restorative

By Joe Nick Patoski

Maybe it’s the exhilarating sense of isolation, or the feeling that you’ve fallen off the edge of the earth into another world. But floating the big canyons of the Big Bend by raft, canoe, or kayak is an experience like none other in Texas or the world beyond. Some folks take to the Rockies or New York or somewhere overseas for vacation. I prefer the exotic charms of a trip on the Rio Grande in the Big Bend any day.

Extreme southwest Texas looks like nowhere else: a pure desert and mountains landscape with uninterrupted vistas and a sprawling sky overhead. Each deep gorge —Santa Elena, Mariscal, and Boquillas canyons inside Big Bend National Park, Colorado Canyon upstream, and the Lower Canyons below the park—exudes the kind of majesty the Texas myth was built upon. Only in this case, these are the real deal, towering like skyscrapers as much as 1,500 feet above the river, rendering insignificant those few humans floating through. It’s a setting as surreal as any dreamscape.

No matter what kind of expedition you embark on, just remember: Once you’re on the Rio Grande, there’s no turning back, because you’ve left the rest of the world behind.

People like you and me have had the chance to enjoy the extreme beauty of this most unusual place ever since the company then known as Far Flung Adventures started organizing Big Bend river excursions in the early 1970s. Since then, whenever the Rio Grande is flowing (which isn’t always a given), river outfitters have been guiding visitors into the canyons for short day trips and overnighters, as well as longer expeditions that can last for days and weeks.

Some trips are rudimentary, straight-up river runs with no more than a boat, paddles, life vests, and a guide. Other trips are full-immersion experiences where you can enjoy gourmet meals, lectures, seminars on photography, geology, astronomy, and writing, or with singer-songwriters or classical chamber groups providing the entertainment. On some deluxe trips, you don’t have to pick up a paddle or pack up a tent unless you want to.

No matter what kind of expedition you embark on, just remember: Once you’re on the Rio Grande, there’s no turning back, because you’ve left the rest of the world behind.

See the full article in the February 2010 issue.

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