Foodstuff: Weekend getaway

I was recently invited across McClure Pass to attend the fourth annual HESTIVAL — a weekend of camping, music, and food thrown by the outdoor brand Hest, known for their ultra-comfy camping setups and perfectly packable, portable pillows.

HESTIVAL sets up camp at Big B’s Delicious Orchards in Hotchiss, where you might have stopped in to sample their impressive selection of hard ciders and cider riffs, as well as a café with a small gourmet market. This joint is my favorite road tripping lunch stop en route to adventures in southwestern Colorado. Don’t sleep on the reuben sandwich.

We were given the HESTIVAL VIP treatment in a pond-adjacent glamping tent and enjoyed three days of music from Stray Grass, Madeline Hawthorne, Desert Child, Dragondeer, and Mama Lingua — some of whom you may have seen perform over the years at the Basalt free concert series in River Park. There were also morning yoga sessions, guided hikes from the Western Slope Conservation Center, shoe demos from Oboz, vendor booths, daily cider happy hours, a group mountain bike ride, and nightly campfires.

But, as with any travel adventure, I’m in it for the food — which was good because between the hikes, the music, the biking, the yoga, the drinking, and one (extremely) late night by the fire, I worked up quite an appetite.

For a supplemental $50 on top of our $100 HESTIVAL pass — which included the happy hours with unlimited cider samples and two nights of camping with complimentary hot showers — we were treated to two hot breakfasts and one Saturday dinner during our stay. The breakfast menus featured a spread of two types of mini quiches: spinach and cheese or bacon, green onion, and cheese. There were assorted pastries, yogurt, granola, fruit salad, a vegan tofu scramble, waffles with fruit syrups from Big B’s (I had the peach), scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, potato hash, and fruit salad.

Dinner was a barbecue bonanza with pulled pork, roasted, smoked half chickens, vegan ratatouille, potato salad, coleslaw, and a garden salad. All of their meats are smoked in-house using various woods (peach, apple, etc.) from around their on-site orchards. The café menu incorporated these meats into sandwiches or on top of salads if you need something hearty after a day on the trails.

Head Chef Quinn Michelsen-O’Leary loves feeding a crowd, and, speaking of the regular café menu, he said, “Being on a farm allows us to highlight the best ingredients … We’re able to bring fresh food from the garden and bring a much-needed atmosphere to town.”

They keep the menu consistent to please visitors who make Big B’s a pit stop, but Michelsen-O’Leary also incorporates surprise weekly specials on Friday nights. We enjoyed a massive, off-menu take on a fried fish sandwich during our visit, served exclusively at the outdoor bar with a side of pillowy hush puppies and the brightest lemon-infused tartar sauce I’ve ever eaten. A spicy fried chicken sandwich, the “Cluck Norris,” was also on order, and s’mores fixings — a must for any camping trip in my book — were available for purchase in the market.

So if you’re headed down south for the long weekend and looking for some good eats, check out what’s cooking at the orchards, and mark your calendars for the next annual HESTIVAL in May 2026.