When's the best time to raft for kids, grandmas and adrenaline-crazed adults (who act like kids)

This is one of the most common questions we receive from our guests. We hate to answer the question this way, but it depends! What does it depend on? Well let's look at a few common groups who join us for Colorado whitewater rafting and we'll go from there...

Families!
Families with young children are typically looking for easy to moderate whitewater rafting that will be a fun introduction for kids, offer some excitement, but not end up with a bunch of black and blue tattoos from the experience. So they want to get splashed and see some rapids but they don't anticipate Grandma leaning over the bow of the raft screaming, "Bring it, Arkansas River. That last wave was pitiful! Show me a REAL rapid!" For this group, we recommend joining us in mid to late May, or early July. May finds the river beginning to rise and awaken from its winter slumber. We see pretty good rapids although the river water is pretty cold; often in the 50's or low 60's. The great thing is that we see hardly anyone else on the river! Early July sees the river coming down from the seasonal June high water. We still have great rapids and the river is beginning to warm up (usually in the 60's) along with the air temperature. From mid-July through mid-August we see moderate water flows which do offer consistent family-friendly rapids (not big rapids, but you still get wet) and warm water temps (upper 60's to low 70's), but this is the height of tourism in Colorado and you'll feel this on the river!

Green-horn Adults!
OK, so you don't have kids, but you don't want your first rafting experience to be a mind-bending, traumatic life-altering experience involving a number of out-of-boat experiences. We understand where you're coming from. Consider either a family-class trip, like Bighorn Sheep Canyon, booked during our seasonal high water. Memorial Day weekend through late June typically sees the highest river flows of the season, and therefore, lots of excitement. The family-class trip is a very exciting ride, but a section that first-time rafting adults absolutely LOVE! Or, think about a Royal Gorge trip early May through mid-May, or anytime from early July through Labor Day weekend. This will get you into some class IV adventure-class whitewater but at a time of year when the river is flowing only moderately; not at huge levels.

Adrenaline-crazed Big Kids!
So you're an adult (or at least you're able to assume that role when necessary), you've rafted a bunch and the idea of falling out of the raft into a big rapid sounds enjoyable to you, when should you join us? The Royal Gorge in June. That's pretty much it. June is the month when the Arkansas River is going to be at its peak. June 12-15 is historically when the river will peak (last year it peaked at well over 5000 cubic feet per second, or cfs; today it's running at around 300 cfs). The Royal Gorge offers some of the biggest hits and most continuous whitewater in the state of Colorado. Here's the catch; if the river gets above 3200 cfs the state comes in and closes the Royal Gorge to commercial rafting. But don't worry! In this case we alter our trip to a section of Bighorn Sheep Canyon that at the same level is NOT family-friendly, and is therefore right up your alley.