Float to the Hill Country
White water Texas style: The summer tubing season rides a beer wave
Easy floating down the Guadalupe
Rockin' R River Rides
Take your pick!
Test your balance.
The manmade chute...
and the natural one.
This Memorial Day weekend a floating festival is engulfing New Braunfels and Gruene, the lackadaisical Hill Country retreats where Shane Wolf scrambles to accommodate the 10,000 floaters expected to swell the banks of the Comal and Guadalupe rivers over the three days.
“We have 30 acres, and you won't be able to see the grass under your feet,” Wolf says of packed the campgrounds at Rockin R’ River Rides, a popular shuttle service for floaters. Beer will flow. Barbecue smoke will waft. And visitors will mark the official start of summer in a regatta of old inner tubes.
When two brothers started Rockin’ R 31 years ago with a few tubes and a pickup, two weeks passed before anyone took them up on their combination tube rental and lift back upstream. Once discovered, though, the rivers’ ranks grew steadily for decades, and floating now ranks right up there with Schlitterbahn for family attractions in the region.
“It’s hard to get away from once you get addicted to it,” says Wolf, who helps manage four locations and 200 employees, some of them on staff for 30 years. This weekend's the Rockfloat Weekend, with musical acts hitting town along with the horde of floaters. But really, any summer weekend brings a tubing party.
Having floated both rivers, I’d have to agree with Wolf on the addicted part. Rockin’ R River Rides and competitors such as Texas Tubes, River Sports Tubes, Andy’s River Toobs and other outfits make planning a day on the water as simple as packing a cooler and applying sunscreen. The average price for a tube rental and a shuttle hovers around $15, and Rock R’ even offers a $25 package that includes a lift to and from most of the area’s hotels.
If you drink beer, bring lots of it. So long as they’re not made from Styrofoam, coolers are allowed on both rivers, and the last time I went, the water was slow and my group managed to run out of beer before we’d even passed the parking lot. (Thankfully, there was another case in the car.)
The Guadalupe offers a longer float and boasts several sets of rapids. The Comal is the slower and the more young-kid-friendly of the two, usually an hour and a half hour ride with occasional spillways around dams that functions a lot like water slides. Hold on to your sunglasses, as you’ll often see people snorkeling below the spillways hunting for lost valuables.
If you’re planning to make the three-hour drive to either river, it’s best to call ahead. Varying water levels occasionally tightens age restrictions or curtail floating entirely.
Most of the time, though, this quick escape offers a shady Hill Country respite, where the only things you'll need to enjoy the charms of central Texas are a tube, some sunshine and a few hours to kill with your friends.
The Skyline Suite at the Thompson San Antonio - Riverwalk features a beautiful soaking tub.Thompson San Antonio - Riverwalk
Everyone knows the beach is a top-tier romantic paradise.
Photo courtesy of Cinnamon Shore
