Lee's Ferry - Modern Crossing

Modern Crossing

Lee's Ferry is considered the official beginning of Grand Canyon National Park on the Colorado River and is used as a fishing area and river rafting launch site. The site features several buildings built at the site beginning in 1874 along with a steamboat abandoned in 1913 by a mining company working the canyon walls nearby. The area is managed by the National Park Service within the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area as a historical site.

Lee's Ferry is the principal starting point for rafting trips through the Grand Canyon, which are said to offer "a trip backwards through time" as the river cuts through progressively older strata. The majority of trips are run by dedicated commercial rafting enterprises using motorized inflatable rafts to carry large parties of tourists on the river (up to two dozen passengers per raft) with most trips lasting a week to ten days. Some trips travel all the way to Lake Mead some 277 river miles downstream and can last several weeks. Permits for private trips are no longer backlogged on an extensive waiting list, but instead based on a lottery system. All but the most experienced rapid runners are discouraged from this potentially dangerous trip.

Trips upstream from the nearby Paria Riffle may be made without special permit (other than a day use boating fee) and users may travel upstream on calm waters to the foot of Glen Canyon Dam. Camping sites are also available for a minor Park Service fee.

Near Lee's Ferry is where the annual flow of the Colorado River is measured in order to divvy up its water among the seven states that depend on it.