Rafting the “Numbers” section of the Arkansas River, Buena Vista, CO, July 2019

The Sidekick and I did a really awesome and long trip to Colorado in 2019. One of the many highlights was rafting the “Numbers” section of the Arkansas River with the Adventure Company out of Buena Vista. Though the trip itself was planned way ahead of time, planning the rafting trip was not as easy. The previous winter had a lot of snow which led to a pretty crazy river season. If you like intensity, late July is not the best time for rafting, but this particular year I had to keep calling once or twice a week to see if they were opening up the outfitters by the time our trip came! I was eyeing the Pine Creek stretch, but was spooked by the number of deaths on Colorado rivers that spring, and Pine Creek is the hardest stretch, but the section just below it, The Numbers, is itself a pretty advanced stretch of the Arkansas, mostly IV and IV+ rapids all in succession, hence the rapids are just numbers! The river was MOVING. The video is just the lead up to Rapid 5 through 5.5, it is totally uncut, thats 11 minutes straight of almost entirely whitewater! There will be a longer video in the YouTube channel soon. This is a super fun stretch of water to raft, for sure!