Arkansas

Ran for the first time at 2300 in summer of 2024 and it felt like it was pretty close to the perfect level. An incredibly fun, fast-paced, heart pounding run in our raft with big holes and many necessary moves. INCREDIBLY CONTINUOUS. There are certainly places to pull over but if you go in early July like we did, many are likely too crowded for larger boats. I would say expect to padle this one all the way through if you are going at flows above low water. At 2300 it took our 3 boat trip with no carnage less than 45 minutes. Despite 'only' being class IV-IV+, the continous nature of this run means this is probably not a good choice for the beginner-intermediate paddler and you shouldn't even think about it if you aren't confident in your ability to self-rescue in a rapid. I haven't run Royal Gorge at anything above 1200, so take this next statement with a grain of salt but I thought the Numbers were more challenging and much harder to scout. If you are confident in your skills this is an incredible run you won't want to miss with the Fractions right downstream providing a less intense but still very fun option to make this a full-day trip.

When we did this, we used 3 cars, parked one at Numbers Launch, one at Railroad with our lunch and other provisions in it, and one in Buena Vista. If I were to run this section again and had the option I would probably do it like this again as it was nice to take a break and decompress before another incredibly continous but fun stretch of river.