Surprises in Dominguez Canyon: Rafting with LC, Scott and the Boys

This video vault selection is from the summer of 2008 when Alex and myself, along with his friends and their dads, went on our first raft/canoe trip together which would become annual event. While we had done many adventures before, this was our first rafting excursion and something completely new for Alex and I.

We floated the lower Gunnison River, just south of Grand Junction, Colorado, 5 hours west of Denver. This is a calm river with a few class 1/2 rapids.

Within a mile of putting in, we dropped out of the high desert plains and entered a magical canyon that looked like it was pulled straight out of Utah and dropped inside Colorado. We were in the midst of steep sandstone rocks, cliffs, wildlife of all sorts, and beautiful stretches of mild rapids. As sunset came on, we were treated to magnificent changing colors in the clear skies and deep, red rocks.

The second big surprise of the trip came the next morning when we went hiking up the Little Dominguez Canyon. While starting out following a very small stream with a few scrub oak, we discovered a series of waterfalls and swimming holes carved deep into the sandstone. As you’ll see in the video, we all felt like we were kids again jumping and swimming along with Huck Finn!