Hidalgo Falls River Festival - April 9-10, 2005.



Hildgao Falls is a medium sized rapid located on the Brazos River a little over a hour northwest of Houston, Texas. It's a medium volume river with normal levels around 4000 cfs.


The top half of the rapid has a wave train on river right and a couple nice surfing waves in the center between the two islands.


A non-profit group of paddlers, "The Texas River Protection Association" owns a good chunk of the land next to the rapid to provide for easy access. This land is the site of the annual festival.


The put-in consists of a long slide down a steep bank to the river. The put-in was also the finish line for a 28-mile downriver race held during festival.


For flat-water boaters, the slide is also a take-out. Attach a boat to the rope, then haul your boat out with your car pulling the rope over the T-Frame.


The bottom of the slide also has a rock/concrete platform for those wishing a "slower" entry.


There is a great set of surfing waves at the bottom of the rapid. For the weekend of the festival, it was sunny and warm all weekend. Air temperatures were in the low 80's, and water temperatures in the high 70's. (Note: That's the nose of Skip's Nitro poking into the bottom of the picture. Most Texans have never seen a Canadian Canoe and it generated quite a bit of interest with a number of Texan's trying it out.)


The surfing waves are tough to reach however, it's a pretty pushy ferry from either side of the channel.

Vendors included Dagger, Liquid Logic, Kokatat, Riot, and others.


Southwest Paddlesports brought an entire store.


The only thing hotter then the paddling was the beef jerky.


There was camping (this is the lower campground). The upper campground is a smaller field near the put-in.


Camping trailers in Texas come with air conditioning.


There was a band on Saturday night.

There was a slalom race Sunday morning. Attaining back upstream between the two islands is not easy. The winner completed the slalom in a little over six minutes. (Photo borrowed stolen from Steve's web site since I was lazy and slept late the morning of the race.)


There was a rodeo on Sunday afternoon.


The crowd cheers on the rodeo particpants. (About 250 people attended the festival total.)


There were six token open boats. (A Rival, Outrage, Outrage-X, Nitro, Whitecell, and some tandem thing.) None of them were fool enough to actually enter the rodeo. (Although the tandem team did enter the slalom.)


The auction was Sunday afternoon. Lots of cash was raised for the TRPA.


I was told that in Texas, this is called a "Portable Self-Propelled Beer Stand".


His feet were twitching, we think he was dreaming of chasing squirrels.


There even was paddling videos!!!


The propety has lots of bamboo growing on it. I've never seen it in the wild before, the locals regard it as a very tall weed.


To get to the property, drive down a tiny dirt road in between the cotton fields.


The cotton gin is the closest landmark. For more info on Hildago Falls, check out Steve Daniel's web page. (For pictures of the 2006 festival look here.)

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