Cañon City sits at the foot of the Rocky Mountains along the Arkansas River, about 45 minutes southwest of Colorado Springs. It is best known as the gateway to the Royal Gorge — a dramatic 300-metre-deep canyon carved by the Arkansas River, spanned by one of the world's highest suspension bridges.
The Royal Gorge is the region's main event, but the Arkansas River through here is also one of Colorado's most popular whitewater rafting destinations, with runs ranging from family-friendly floats to serious Class V rapids through the gorge itself. The surrounding area has good mountain biking and hiking on Bureau of Land Management land.
Cañon City itself is an unpretentious small town of about 17,000 people. It has an outsized number of state prisons — the area hosts more than a dozen correctional facilities — which gives it an unusual economic character, recorded in the unusual Museum of Colorado Prisons. But as a base for outdoor adventure in the Rockies, it is practical and uncrowded.