Royal Gorge 

This morning we drove to the Royal Gorge Bridge and Park which was only a few miles from our campground. The park has the highest suspension bridge in the United States at 1,053 feet above the roaring Arkansas River.  The canyon walls in this area rise as high as 1,250 feet and are as narrow as 50 feet at the base along the river.  The bridge is 1,280 feet long and was built in 1929 as a tourist attraction.

The optimum way to tour the park is to ride the gondolas across and then walk down a steep hill to walk back across the bridge.  However, we arrived at the park at the same time as three tour buses so the line for the gondolas was longer than we wanted to wait.  Instead, we walked across the bridge and then walked uphill to the gondola line on the other side (there was no line) and rode the gondola back to the other side.  IMG 8072

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The view of the Arkansas River from the bridge.

We had to leave the park after just walking the bridge and riding the gondola because we needed to eat lunch and go to Echo Canyon River Expeditions where we had scheduled an afternoon white water rafting trip.

Echo Canyon River Expeditions

Our trip was 10 miles of whitewater on the Arkansas River with class III and class lV rapids.  The raft trip was $82,50 each and I paid $69 for the pictures—I am such a sucker for photos!

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Zip lining over the Royal Gorge in the Royal Gorge Park

After we finished our whitewater trip we drove back to the Royal Gorge Park because I wanted to zip line over the Gorge.  The zip line was $45 (and totally worth it, but I also chose to pay $30 to get a video a a few pictures of my epic flyover).

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I am in the gondola ready to ride across the gorge so I can zip line back!

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Zip lining across the gorge!

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Big Hat parked in our spot in the Royal View Campground

Trip Data:

  • We stayed at the Royal View Campground for two nights at $54.13 a night.  We’ve spent a total of $3,252.89 or an average of $38.27 per night.
  • We’ve driven 4,898 miles in Big Hat and 3,823 in the car for a total of 8,721 miles