A Weekend on the Frio: Garner State Park, Concan, and the Best Spots in Between

The Frio River is the one Texans remember and most out-of-staters have never heard of. It runs cold and clear through the canyons west of San Antonio, past cypresses that were old when your grandparents were born, and it asks more of you than the Guadalupe does. Three hours from Austin, four from Houston, and worth every mile if you pick the right weekend.

Here's how to spend two days on it.

Friday: get to Concan and stop driving

Concan is the unofficial capital of the Frio. Two stoplights, three outfitters, more cabins than you can count, and the river running right through the middle of it. Most folks book a cabin at Neal's Lodges or one of the ranches around it and call that home base for the weekend.

If you're a camper, the cabins at Garner State Park book up six months out for summer weekends. Plan ahead or get on the cancellation list.

Friday afternoon: get there, unload, walk down to the water, dunk your feet, decide you're glad you made the drive.

Saturday: the long float

The classic Frio float starts at Garner State Park. The state park has tube rentals on site and a stretch of river between the day-use area and the dam that's mostly mellow water with one or two small drops. The cypresses are the show. The water is the show. Bring sunscreen for the tops of your feet. That's the part everybody forgets.

Take a long lunch on the gravel bar. Garner has a dance pavilion at night that has been running since the 1940s, and a Saturday-night dance there is one of those Texas things you should do once.

If Garner is full, try Camp Chalk Bluff upstream. It's quieter, prettier, and a little harder to find.

Sunday morning: a quiet float

Sunday morning before the day-trippers show up is the best two hours on the Frio. Put in at Concan or just below Neal's, do a short float, and be off the water by ten when the sun starts to bake.

If you've got time and gas, drive up to Leakey. The crossings up there are smaller and the water is colder, and the drive between Leakey and Concan on Highway 83 is one of the better twenty-mile stretches in the state.

A note on flow

The Frio is the most flow-dependent of the four big tubing rivers. After a dry spring, the upper reaches near Leakey can be too low to float, while the lower stretches near Concan still run fine. Check the conditions page before you load the truck, and read the gauge guide if you haven't yet. The Frio is where reading a gauge actually pays off, because the difference between a great float and a frustrating one is fifty CFS in the wrong direction.

What to bring

A cooler with a strap. Water shoes, because the Frio bottom has more rock and less sand than the Guadalupe. Sunscreen, plus more sunscreen. Cash for the outfitters and the gas stations, because reception is spotty and a card reader on a Sunday afternoon in Concan is a coin flip.

A camp chair for the gravel bars.

Why bother

Because the Comal and the Guadalupe will always be there, and they will always be crowded, and the Frio will always be the one that asks you to drive a little farther for a little quieter day. That's the trade. Most weekends, it's worth it.