So, you’ve decided to try whitewater rafting: fantastic! If you ask us (and we’re admittedly biased), there are few better forms of outdoor recreation. The caliber of adventure and the spectacular communion with flowing water—an essential part of Earth’s lifeblood—make river running exceptional. But how do you decide between single-day and multi-day rafting trips?
Here at Echo Canyon River Expeditions, in business since 1978 and going stronger than ever, we’re proud to guide both one-day and multi-day rafting on some of the finest and most fabled whitewater not only in Colorado but North America in general.
In the following article, we’ll break down the decision-making process involved in choosing between half-day, full-day, and multi-day itineraries out on the rapids.
What Makes the Best Rafting Adventures
In our opinion, the best rafting vacation is whatever works best for you. What’s important, after all, is getting out on the river, because it can be downright life-changing. We’ve seen it many times: guests falling under a lifelong swoon for the power, rhythm, and majesty of a wild river. We want you to be able to taste this primal engagement with the current, however, you’re able to make it happen.
There are multiple factors to consider, but they’re all pretty darn basic and straightforward. How much time can you spare? What is your level of experience? How strong a swimmer are you? What are you looking for in a river-running adventure: fast-paced thrills in leaping rapids? Scenic floats of the laidback variety? Wildlife-watching? Wilderness immersion?
The idea is simply to match your skill and confidence levels, your personal preferences and goals, and your logistical constraints to a river trip that checks all the right boxes—and, believe us, there’s a rafting adventure that does just that for you.
Day Rafting Trips
One-day Colorado rafting trips offer awesome introductions to the joys of whitewater with minimal demands on your schedule. If you’re strapped for time, these are great choices; the same goes if you’re not really the camping-out kind, and want to follow up an adventure on gorgeous wildwater with a nice sit-down dinner and a comfy roof-over-your-head slumber.
Day trips also give you the ability to tack on other activities on the same day as your rafting fun—and we’ve got numerous packages and deals combining river running with ziplining, hiking, and other outdoor recreation in some of Colorado’s most amazing landscapes.
At Echo Canyon, we offer many options for day trips on world-class whitewater, including half-day and full-day rafting trips on the Arkansas River: through wildlife-rich Bighorn Sheep Canyon, the gobsmacking Royal Gorge, and farther upstream in Browns Canyon or the spectacular headwaters rapids of The Numbers. We also run half-day, family-friendly Scenic Floats in the Arkansas’s Upper Bighorn Sheep Canyon as well as day rafting outings on Clear Creek near Denver.
Our half-day trips generally involve around three hours on the water, while full-day itineraries give you six-ish hours riding the river. Single-day rafting sections shuttle you along on the order of 10 to 20 miles of downstream wonderment.
Multi-Day Rafting Trips
If you have the time and the inclination, we highly recommend giving a multi-day rafting trip a try. Extending your hours on the river can deepen your connection to the flow and enhance the healthy, getting-away-from-it-all therapy a whitewater trip delivers. More fun with friends, more rapids and waves, more opportunities to glimpse wildlife and savor solitude, camping out on sandy river beaches: The allure of a multi-day rafting odyssey is hard to resist.
Our Echo Canyon guides lead a wide variety of multi-day routes, from 2-day overnight affairs to an expedition lasting up to six days. The campouts on these journeys are just as fun as the river running itself, with breakfast, lunch, and dinner cooked for you and the rest of the crew right on the riverside as you kick back and read, play games, and otherwise bond with your fellow rafters.
Our overnights Arkansas River outings give you the option of traversing the milder, scenery-drenched Bighorn Sheep Canyon followed up by the rip-roaring Class IV action of the Royal Gorge—or, depending on your group’s interests, running the Royal Gorge twice. We also lead 2- to 3-day trips on the Arkansas, rafting from Fourteener-shouldered Colorado Rockies high country down to a finishing section in either Bighorn Sheep Canyon or the Royal Gorge.
Then there’s our 3-day rafting trip on the San Miguel River, a glorious tributary of the Dolores heading near Telluride, and our 3- to 6-day adventures on the Dolores itself, one of the defining drainages of southwestern Colorado’s utterly monumental San Juan Mountains.
What to Consider When Choosing Day vs. Multi-Day Rafting Experiences
To sum up, choosing between single-day Colorado rafting trips and multi-day expeditions is all about weighing how much time you can allocate to the river, whether you want to combine dryshod fun such as hiking and mountain biking with rafting, the kind of whitewater (and how much of it) you’re comfortable dealing with, and how keen on camping/roughing it you are.
Here at Echo Canyon River Expeditions, our highly experienced and expertly trained team can arrange the perfect specialty rafting trip for parties of all skill/experience levels and preferences. Putting safety at the top of the priority list, we’ll deliver a genuinely magical river adventure—one day or weeklong—no matter what.
Reserve Your Rafting Spots With Echo Canyon
Selecting the perfect river rafting experience for you and your group is important. Contact our dedicated team today for any inquiries about our exhilarating multi-day rafting or day rafting trips. We’re excited to host you and create unforgettable memories together.
