Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
FAR FLUNG OUTDOOR CENTER
take a gourmet raft trip down the rio grande
BIG BEND NATIONAL PARK, TEXAS
All you need is the ability to drink and eat.
—Francois Maeder, owner of Crumpets Restaurant
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Big Bend National Park is one of the largest swaths of wilderness in the United States.
It has its own mountain range, colorful badlands, Chihuahuan Desert scenery, and a river that
has carved out three canyons more than 1,000 feet deep. Because it's located in a remote part
of a gigantic state that's way down south, however, it's one of the country's least visited parks.
You're more likely to run into a cactus or a javelina or a border patrolman than a restaurant,
let alone a restaurant with decent food.
Yet, six to eight times a year, on the banks of the Rio Grande, you can feast from a gour-
met restaurant that
Esquire
magazine once picked as one of the country's 100 best. The res-
taurant that made the list was Crumpets Restaurant and Bakery in San Antonio, and periodic-
ally its owner, Swiss-born chef Francois Maeder, packs up his rosemary-scented rack of lamb,
his ducks, his beef Wellington, and more and heads for the river.
Since 1988, Far Flung Outdoor Center has teamed with Maeder to offer a gourmet raft
trip that winds its way through the Rio Grande's Santa Elena Canyon, a twisting channel with
ancient American Indian pictographs painted into the sheer 1,500-foot limestone walls. After
careening through Rockslide Rapids—Class II to Class IV white water, depending on the time
of year—you'll be treated to seven special meals on this three-night rafting trip. Chef Maeder,
with the help of his trusty rafting guides, sets up tables with white tablecloths, fancy china,
crystal wine goblets, and candles in the middle of the wilderness. A typical five-course meal
might include mushroom-stuffed wild quail, smoked salmon, pâté, roasted asparagus, New
Zealand rack of lamb, and prickly pear-strawberry trifle, all topped off with cognac and port.
There's even live music to complete the ambience.
UPPING THE STAKES—ER, STEAKS
