3 DAY PONDEROSA GORGE RAFT TRIP

3 Day – Ponderosa Gorge Raft Trips on the Dolores River

The beginning of the more navigable portion of the river lies below the town of Dolores where the Dolores River enters Ponderosa Gorge. Sloping canyon walls covered with oak brush and other shrubs characterize the first few miles of river below Bradfield Bridge. Then the canyon deepens and begins its transition from a mountain to a desert river. Sandstone walls appear and groves of ponderosa pine and Douglas fir cover the benches along the river, offering some of the West’s most beautiful campsites.

On the second day, you will stop to visit an ancient Anasazi Indian ruin high on a cliff face where you can imagine the lifestyle of a native culture long since vanished.

With a gradient of 19 feet per mile, you’ll be moving swiftly downstream to an encounter with “Old Snaggletooth”, the most formidable rapid on the entire river. Before the invention of the self-bailing raft, some river runners maintained that Snaggletooth had been portaged more times than it had been successfully run! The miles-long House Rock Rapid is a great finale to this stunning river.