The Frio

 

I didn't take pictures to describe a flood back then. A couple dozen writers were attending an annual confab we were privileged to attend at Laity Lodge, on the Frio River, somewhere close to the Guadalupe in the Texas Hill Country, nearest city of any consequence was Kerrville, where the flooding spent most its murderous power.

But a look at the Frio's history shows flooding all too evident. It runs, gentle as a lamb, right through the camps on the river, clear as glass. The river bed is rock, which means there's no mud so the water is crystalline. Look for yourself. 

But its track record left formations that are enough to make you shiver because there sure as anything was a moment or two in time when a gorgeous stream was devastating. The lines on the opposite bank reminisce. 

The canyon walls are scored and scared with torrential floods. The only way to get to the Lodge is to drive through the Fria River, which is possible--just think of it--because of its rocky bed. No dirt, no mud. The river flows proudly through a valley it created itself through a thousand years.

 Try to imagine what this must look like at flood stage, 25 or 30 feet higher, 

carving out rocky river banks with no machinery other than the inestimable power of storm, swooping though the hard rock canyon in a torrent that leaves stooped walls like these.

It's hard to think of something so placid and beautiful as the glassy look of a quiet river in the Texas Hill Country.

I lugged my camera along to Texas to take shots like these--of images simply unavailable on the emerald edge of the Great Plains.

The Frio was little more than a crick when we walked along, but what was all too evident was that it hadn't always been as compliant as it was for the last century or so. The Frio's own penchant for violence has not been forgotten--nor will it be.