Currie_Danielle_Wk3_Arkansas_River

This week my family and I went to the Arkansas River.  The Arkansas River meanders 1,469 miles eastward through Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas before joining the Mississippi River near Napoleon, Arkansas.  The rivers meander because the erosion and sediment deposit.  The Arkansas River is the sixth longest river in the United States and the second-longest tributary in the Mississippi-Missouri system.  At its headwaters, the Arkansas River runs as a steep mountain torrent through the Rockies in its narrow valley, dropping about 4,600 feet, creating The Numbers and Brown’s Canyon near Buena Vista, Colorado and the Royal Gorge at Canon City, Colorado, which see extensive whitewater rafting in the spring and summer. From there, the Arkansas River widens as it enters the Great Plains taking an eastward course. Along the plains, the channel is very shallow, in some places the banks being less than five feet above the low water and the channel as much as 3/4 of a mile wide. It enters Kansas in Hamilton County, traversing more than 300 miles before snaking its way into northern Oklahoma to Tulsa and making its way to Arkansas.  The Arkansas River is the most popular whitewater rafting river in the United States. I have rafted this river over 50 times when I worked at Peterson AFB.  Every year commercial river outfitters guide more that 150,000 guests down the upper sections of the river and some through the Royal Gorge, offering scenic floats to class V rafting adventures.  

History Along the Arkansas River. (n.d.). Retrieved July 21, 2018, from https://www.legendsofamerica.com/arkansas-river/

Best of Salida  - The Arkansas River. (n.d.). Retrieved July 22, 2018, from http://www.salida.com/salida-best-of/best-of-arkansas-river.html