Cataract Canyon

 BETA

Stream: There are many ways to paddle Cataract Canyon.  Most often, boaters put in 4 days upstream of the canyon and float for four days of flat water before reaching the first whitewater (can be reduced with a motor or night floating in rafts).  We did the run in packrafts, hiking in to "The Loops" area on the Colorado from The Needles District.  Our first day involved a 4 mile hike and a couple hours of flat water floating to our camp at Spanish Bottom.

Day 0:  We set shuttle and camped somewhat close to the start of the hike at Hamburger Rock.

Day 1:  We drove a 4WD road that starts behind the visitor center in the Needles District for awhile.  Once we deemed the road more rough than we wanted to subject our vehicle to, we parked and hiked 1 more mile of road before the 3 mile cross-country hike starting at the spot pictured below.

The hike started off on slickrock, contouring around a couple noses of land, before dropping into a meadow.  From the meadow we headed toward the river, dropping through a rock cleft on the remnants of an old hand built mining road which descended to another flat area.  We followed a wash to a cliff at the edge of the Colorado and headed downstream along the edge of the cliff, eventually finding the one weakness in the cliff that allowed us to drop down to the edge of another cliff.  We followed that cliff downstream some more, where eventually another weakness led to water-level.  

There were a lot of cliffs.

The only spot where we took the packs off our backs to descend.

The first few hours were flat water, at high water a rock slide that has pinched the river into a narrow channel creates a wave train.  It was just a riffle when we were there.

A sign warns that you have reached Cataract Canyon not too far below the confluence with the Green River.  We had a strong headwind between here and Spanish Bottom on our trip.

We camped on the right at Spanish Bottom, where some steps had been chiseled into the sandstone embankment.

A turkey who has made this area his home kept us company.

Day 2:  We started the next day with a walk up to the Dollhouse, which was a great hike.

That afternoon we paddled a handful of miles down to the XY campsites.  There were a handful of rapids, all easily scouted at these flows but could also be read and run.  They were mostly fun class III with fun waves.  Rapid 5 was the only one I'd scout again if I went back at similar flows.  It had a few different line options and a couple of large holes to avoid.

Brown Betty, a fun one to start off with.

Water was the largest logistical concern once on the river.  The Colorado is very silty at this point in it's journey, so we used wine bags to let it settle overnight before filtering in the morning.

Our XY campsite on river-right.

Clear enough to filter in the morning.

 Day 3:  The next day was full of rapids.  We chose to scout a lot and take photos, this kept the stress level down so we didn't have to worry about dropping into large holes we didn't see from above, the whitewater was class II/III to start, but shifted to class III/IV as we entered the Mile Long Rapids.  We scouted a couple of these.

The Mile-long rapids ends at an island, we scouted from the island and chose 3 different paths through the right channel.

Downstream is a nice beach on the left where we ate lunch, and went for a scout of the Big Drops.

From the scout, we determined there was actually a better scout for us from the right bank.  I ran Big Drop 1 while Priscilla and Sara did a partial portage on the right.  At this flow Big Drop 1 started with an open wave train with large and fast, but forgiving waves before narrowing down into some crashier waves at the bottom.  I scrambled into an eddy to the right of the larger waves at the bottom since I wanted to avoid trying to combat roll my packraft.

Top of Big Drop 1

Big Drop 2 Priscilla scouted from the right bank, and sent us down a fun channel on the right side of the river.

Big Drop 3 we scouted from the left, and was larger than the rest.  We initially all planned to portage, partially due to the challenge of the rapid, and partially because of strong wind.  As we were paddling down to the portage eddy from the scout there was a break in the wind and I went for the ledge move on the left which went well.

Below Big Drop 3 used to be the end of the run as the Colorado entered Lake Powell.  Lake Powell has been historically low the last couple of years, and we had many more rapids to go.

We scouted a number of them to find routes that avoided large holes, and found enjoyable class III-III+ lines through each.  Imperial Canyon Rapids stood out as long with large waves.

Eventually, things eased off, but we knew that Gypsum Rapid waited downstream and had been changing pretty regularly each season.  When we reached it we took a look on the left.  The line started middle, moving left after some shallow rocks and finished with some fun, straightforward waves.  

Note the bathtub line on river-right within the Dominy Formation.

After Gypsum the whitewater was over, and it was moving flat water for the rest of the day.  

Fortunately, the views were wonderful.

We stopped at Clearwater Canyon for the night.  Having watched and heard the Dominy Formation calving all afternoon, we were glad the beach we were on was not below a steep wall of sand.

Clearwater Canyon was more like redwater canyon, so it was another night of settling water. 

Day 4:   The next day had over 20 miles of moving flat water in store for us, fortunately for us, a kind group of rafters with a motor towed us for many miles.

There was one new rapid shortly above the Hite Bridge, situated between two warm springs.  It was straightforward when we went through.

Within sight of the Hite Bridge, the water slowed as it hit Reservoir Powell, and while still moving felt like a lake.  The rafters caught up to us here again after stopping earlier for a side hike, and towed us in to the take out.  We repaid their kindness by helping them schlepp their rafts up the steep and eroded take-out hill.

We finished up shuttle, grabbing Pizza in Monticello and camping again near Hamburger Rock after a night mission to retrieve the put in vehicle.

Historically a raft trip due to the long length and days of flat water, Cataract Canyon is a wonderful Fall adventure for packrafts and kayaks if using the hike-in option.  

  
Flows:  We paddled Cataract Canyon from Oct 29-Nov 1, 2024.  The day with the most whitewater was Oct 31, and I noticed the increase in flow between that evening and the next morning, so I think we were ahead of the flow increase and had about 6,000 cfs while paddling the rapids.  This was a good level for a class III/IV trip with time between all the rapids and easy scouting and portage options if needed for kayaks.

USGS 09328960 COLORADO RIVER AT GYPSUM CANYON NEAR HITE, UT

I have only made this one trip, at higher flows it is a totally different river from what I understand, and much more powerful/difficult.

Access:  First off you need to go through the permit process to run Cataract Canyon.  It will reduce your headache if you make it to the river the first night after you start hiking, otherwise you need hiking permits too.  Or, float down from near Moab for extra days with flat water.

This was our driving route to get to the cross-country hike we did. There are many other options, I do believe this is the one I'd choose to use every time as it is the shortest hike I know of.  A high clearance vehicle with 4WD is required by the Park Service to use the access road we did.  We were sent a written warning for using a Subaru with AWD.  If you look at the road map, you'll notice there is an adjacent road to the east that goes to about the same place.  This road is on BLM land and does not have the same vehicle class restrictions as the road we took, so you are free to take whatever vehicle you wish down that road without fear of NPS fines.  However, I can't speak to the quality of that road, my guess is it is rougher than the road we took.

The trickiest part of the road we took, most of it was sandy, with some small washes to cross.

A link to a kmz file of our hiking route:  

If you go this route, take the planning seriously.  This was the only route that worked through this area, going off route at most any point would dead end at impassible cliffs.  I recommend using the Gaia app or something similar to plan your route, and to take it with you on your trip for navigation.

Start:  38.21590702290405, -109.79650801417125

End:  38.23055099238411, -109.81336505006693

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Story/Notes
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Our itinerary

Day 0: Shuttle

Day 1: Hike and paddle to Spanish Bottom

Day 2: Doll House hike and paddle to XY Camps

Day 3: Most of the rapids, then some flat water down to Clearwater Canyon

Day 4: Float/get towed out, then finish shuttle and camp near put in.

Day 5: Drive to next destination.

If possible, I would take one more day to do the trip in order to be "on river time".  We were not rushed on this trip, but did need to keep track of time and paddle with purpose.

If we had not scouted so much, and/or had skipped the Doll House hike, this would have been the right number of days.  The tow from the rafters on the last day kept us from finishing late.

Another group did the run a couple days before we put on in 24 hours, paddling in the dark for a lot of the flat water, so of course, if you want to go fast and not have much daylight in camp the duration of the trip can be greatly reduced.

Avenza had a nice map showing all the rapids and campsites, it cost $2 per quadrant and I found it worthwhile to buy the quadrant for the day with all the rapids.