Embudo Creek

The access to the Embudo is an approximately a mile from the parking spot.

There is about a 1/4 mile hike down to the river. You will have 2 miles of Class II to warm up on before the rapids. If you have a lot of water in this section you are in for a big day!

From this point to the bottom of Long Rapid there will be no pools or even a slight pause in the rapids. It will just get exponentially steeper...

Fast Class IV will last for about 1/4 mile.

This is one of those aptly named rapids. The start of the rapid is very ambiguous, essentially at some point you will have noticed the continuous Class IV just got a hell of a lot burlier! About a mile of non-stop Class V later you will come to something resembling a pool, this could be considered the end of Long Rapid. This is the deepest part of the Embudo Gorge, if you swim here you are SCREWED!

This is an impressive rapid, distinctly steeper than anything else in the upper gorge. However, of the big rapids I would rate this one the easiest. It starts off with a nice boof at the entrance, then power left to miss an undercut, then a left to right move as you lose some elevation.

You can almost see MJ Falls from CheeseGrater Falls, they are seperated by about 3 rapids. MJ has a pushy twisting entrance with a stout hole at the bottom.

The Rio De Las Trampas (River of the Traps) carves a small side canyon into the upper gorge river left just after MJ. Keep your eyes peeled, blink and you'll miss it. There is a waterfall 50 feet from the river that is worth a stop to check out. If this trib is cranking expect the rapids to be jucier downstream.

The last drop of the upper gorge is a twisting rapid that takes advantage of boaters exhausted from the hard paddling above and takes them for a ride they won’t forget! Boof hard left at the entrance, then boogie right to miss a big overhanging f-u rock.

A mellow ½ mile of Class III separates the upper and lower gorges. If you're in over your head, or if the level is greater than 3.4, it's highly advisable that you retreat up one of the gullies on river left in this mellow section. The best gulch is an obvious notch, located where the river takes a right turn. The hike out is very easy.

The lower gorge starts off with Pinball and Slamdance, these rapids are stacked right on top of each other and have severe zigzagging lines. The last drop in Slamdance is a perfectly formed river wide hydraulic. At high water this rapid will blend in with Slots of Fun and Taco Garden into a giant mile long V++ monstrosity.

Slots is the poster boy of the “funnel river”. There are about 5 distinct Class V drops flowing headlong into the next, with each one bigger than the last, culminating in a completely boxed in 15 footer. The 15 footer is super bony, not reccommended to run it below 3.0. This rapid is extremely difficult to portage. It can be portaged in its entirety on river right, however I refer to this as the 'pure misery' portage. The only other option is to portage halfway down on the left, do a death ferry, and finish on the right. With the exception of the death ferry, this is a much easier portage!

At the bottom of Slots of Fun the gorge opens up and the river bed gets wide and shallow but the gradient keeps crankin’ right along for another ½ mile. This section was named Taco Garden back in the day of long pointy boats, but these days pinning and folding your boat is a lot harder!

This is the Arroyo take-out is approximately 2 miles upstream of the Highway 75 Bridge and is the preferred take-out. Do not park at the highway bridge takeout as described in *Colorado Rivers and Creeks, II*.