Bailey Canyon | Colorado Classic

Bailey Canyon is a classic section of Colorado whitewater located on the North Fork of the South Platte River. While on our Colorado vacation, we had hoped for this run, but until the day before it seemed unlikely. Luckily, warm weather brought the water level up to a low but runnable flow.

This is a 10 mile, class IV-V run, that starts off in town with a series of no trespassing and private property signs (par for the course in Colorado, unfortunately). After a few easy and scrappy miles, you get to the goods. The rapids are all easy to scout because there’s a dirt road that basically follows the river the entire way.

The rapids were awesome, which I expected from write ups. The scenery was spectacular, which I actually didn’t expect. Especially since the run starts off in town and goes past a bunch of farms. The first rapid of note, called Four Falls, we portaged the first drop without scouting. We had read that 99% of boaters portage it so didn’t even look. After we got around it with our kayaks we saw that it was actually very manageable at our flows and regretted the lazy automatic portage. From then on, we more carefully scouted prior to running or portaging the rapids.

Overall, I had high expectations for this run. Even so, it surpassed my expectations. Even with our low water, the rapids were fun and challenging. The scenery was beautiful and had several different characters. I highly recommend this run to anyone in the area. Get out there and enjoy! ~Diane Brasuell (Gaydos)